A voice from the flight deck mumbles — something
about the weather in Boston — as the plane lumbers
into the dawning day above it all,
the sniper’s nest in the blue Caprice, endless
wars, dead hostages, suicide bombers
blowing nailed starbursts through sunblind busses.
Jane, how I welcome your astringent lines, sly
as a measured throw of cards on velvet tables,
the ordered games of Hartfield after dinner
while poor cold Woodhouse prattles on the dangers
of rich cakes, and pretty Emma schemes.
Sealed in dread six miles up, I enter
your safe art gladly, shaking the dust
of crumbling civilizations off my boot-soles.
From a new book of poems, In Praise of Old Photographs, Little Poem Press, 2005.
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