(originally published in After the Pause, Fall 2017)
heartbreak
Plane Delay
You learn your plane
has been delayed
again.
You remind yourself it has nothing to do
with you. The cause must be
something mechanical– a loose cap or
calibration error. The crew
does not have to say it’s not you,
it’s us because by now you know
the sigh of steel wings, how planes take
a while to ascend anyway.
How insignificant– this delay
stretches hours and a kind
voice speaks through white
noise on the loudspeaker like
she wants to say there is something
we can do to make a difference.
The plane will have the sky when
it is ready. Until then,
do not say it is broken.
(originally published in Little Patuxent Review, Winter 2016)
Headache – Internal Bleeding
On bridges I wait for the crash;
below, for the crumble.
With slick-ice roads in the
dead of winter
by the open canal,
in my mind I watch my car slide
off the road, into water.
Inconsequential
even if I knew how to swim.
She taught me– or tried to, at least.
She told me to find
my “inner mermaid”–
like a man.
And to fill my lungs like balloons
with meaningless, throwaway air–
which I did, to a fault.
(originally published in The Literary Commune – Issue #4, April 2015)