All the City Buses Swimming Past

Desmond is My Constant

What happens to a plane that falls
thirty-thousand-feet?
If it happens to be traveling
at the acceptable speed
for modern day air travel
my assumption is
it explodes.

Unless it falls into the sea.

And then, it splashes,
like something greater than
a whale, or a pod of them,
or a space shuttle
falling from the heavens
like a rock the moon tossed
right back at us—it doesn’t
so much like to be stoned.

And when it splashes,
and when it crashes,
its bones,
its limbs—
its skeleton—
they shatter like a little bird’s frame,
hallow and insecure.

And when there are flames,
or ripples of water
that someone somewhere
is surfing along the affects of,
all the souls inside
that hallow piece of metal
are somewhere else entirely,
already gone away.


November 30, 2008
Author's Note: The title is a working title...and you might've laughed if you too are a Lostie. I could have also called it "At the Bottom of Everything." (And when we get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything, oh then we'll see it, well see it, well see it!) As for the poem...it's kind of surprisingly upbeat, especially for me.
I'm Happy Just Because