Flying Is Everything I Imagine Now and More

No shudder, no plunge, no cabin

strafed by sun

as when the earth constricts these wingtips and pulls

us like a bowstring

below the cloudline; no

intercom or ice storm, no seatbelt signs lit

like a thought

achieved in chorus; no red-eyes

trembling like cross hairs on the horizon;

no threat, no glance met

(as has been endemic

these last five years) by a fear that does nothing

but unite us—

no flying really scares me now

save this scenario I’ve loved too long

and replayed

at those altitude where clouds still

canopy imagination: it begins

with the cabin pressure bled

all over states

already red, till each passenger hovers,

tethered

to their seat buckles or pursuing

chewing gum, hands parting the breathing cups

like seaweed—

But stop. See my problem? I want

so badly to recast in-flight disaster

as gorgeous, that whoosh

of air narrowing where

an exit clasp detached and heaven gasps me

back into the ether,

even roll my limbs

in its mouth a spell before the earth draws back

on the distance

I tried to put between us.

There’s reason here, and a few good intentions

lost as this fall blurs

into the after-life

it’s hurtling after: there’s my plane sailing on,

there’s its jetstream

of color-coded worry

trailing the tail-fin. I watch my clothes gently

lift away till I’m pale

as a lightning bolt

and the chutes of rain I’ve punched through nimbus

clouds chase me

toward the cause of all this

desperate imagination: it’s this country,

looming larger now

and utterly literal

about all that it’s afraid of. I once hoped

to ease the sky

within our reach, imagine

our recent victimhood as so much fuel burned

up in transit. But what can lyric

say to fear

hijacking countries? Only this, the lowest

point I can imagine:

I’m falling, arms out,

through smog, the dust splitting up till I’m costumed

in the exhaust

of my nation. I see cities

aglow like circuit boards, and cars lighting paths

from one target

to another. A noise picks

up like a thousand screens, and I whisper

into that music:

America, I am

so harmless now, spilling down perpetually

toward you. Draw

your sunroofs back and call me

home. Let your grass blades raise their heads to meet me.

Octopus

Monterey, 2004

*

His flesh stretched out in eight squirmy tails

or so my cousin Natalie, she’s six today, believes—

Look, look, I can see his feelers! I can touch his suckers!

O octopi, my umber then amber bundle, will you fill your parachute

(now you’re chartreuse)— and teach me how to hide

when everyone is looking?

Nat, too smart for six, reminded me once that dolor rhymes with color

also feelers also lover

*

Sunday morning, ten AM—

my love and I munch marshmallow cereal

in bed— I scatter a handful across her belly then slowly, almost wholly

kiss away the constellation.

Here is my confession: surprised by sudden love I am equally

unsure of where in time we are or might

be going: by noon she’s red as every sixth bit of cereal, the color

of our coming.

*

Natalie again, perfectly enamored: did you know they funnel water?

It’s true. It’s called a siphon.

She’s right, of course, it works like jet propulsion: octopi don’t so much

move as occupy another burst of ocean—

call it piggybacking streams, technicolor flush, a dance, or drift

just register my envy: my flesh will always displace a place—

the octopus is wherever it is going—

*

To feel is not the same, nor even analogous as having feelers—

and yet both, through subterfuge and hues, rely upon

the palette: some days I’m blue and lightly bruised, conspicuous as any ocean

Tomorrow I will redden, let passion

fog my picture.

My love—

are we ever more than our collected strokes

of pain or pleasure? I want so badly to breathe

*

clear across my canvas, maybe cast it into a pane

of glass and live inside, transparent

as six-year-old adulation: I can see him! I can see him! I can touch

his feelers! eye to eye, Nat and the octopi, she fogs

the glass like a dragon,

even draws a star (five points for the cephalopod) around

a sucker: this is how we stare into the glass

without facing our reflection.

*

Monterey, some beach, this summer:

as my lover disappears behind the reeds to pee

I realize that, despite the moonlight, she’s the absence

of color: her skin is steam—

her hair’s the evening air: deep black and absorbing.

Tonight the tide will swell with jellyfish, translucent.

If I am silent, still as the dunes themselves,

I swear that she will never reach me.

*

Look, you can see it moving—

Nat is pressed so close to the glass I cannot,

at first, make out

the ink cloud, spreading thin as conversation

through the water. Neat trick she says, and I agree

as the octopus disappears, his body like a fogged-in flare

shot up from the bottom of the ocean.

I am green with envy.

*

I am seen

by anyone and everyone

willing to pull the ink away and part its curtain.

Natalie is miffed, proceeds to tap the glass and ask: Why did he go

away? I offer that he might be shy, but am thinking

four limbs plus four limbs equals a couple.

She is unimpressed, instead suggests:

Can we go feed the seagulls?