Poems > Light Chop

Light Chop

The pilot says, as puffed up little bags of peanuts jiggle
on the flight attendant’s tray.
The Continental Divide’s to blame, it seems, stretching
out on earth’s upheavals
and, six miles high my body full of water and air
settles toward my feet, ankles bad balloons,
heart fluttering, querulous.  See I use a fancy word
to soothe my fear as clouds rise up and bump us--no,
we are going down into all that cumulus like
a congested head, sliding into a sinus infection
known as Detroit, just a light chop, he says,
to get us all drained out onto frozen ground.