He keeps the poem in his mouth
like a communion wafer,
lets it dissolve slowly,
taste of the unsaid
leaks into his blood.
-
Over the gulf
the cabin lights dim
and the earth spins
its 33⅓ rpm,
no B-side.
-
A child two rows up asks
why the moon follows the plane.
The mother whispers
because it’s lonely
the way only very old things
can be lonely.
-
He winks at that moon.
Some alliances
are stronger when secret.
-
The pilot sneezes,
the plane
very discreetly
sneezes with him,
a tiny turbulence of solidarity,
-
and in that micro-shiver
the whole fuselage remembers
it is only a thin aluminum promise
against the dark.
-
The plane descends,
the earth swells.
Florida reaches up like a jeweled hand,
ready to catch whatever falls.
-
He carries nothing
with him
but the weight of everything
he never wrote down.