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Friday
January 27, 2012
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             My flabby flesh jiggles in turbulence,
all this mass and thrust, the jet fuel exploding
in the stratosphere, 37,000 ft. cruising altitude,
an all-pink sky, snow-covered January Rockies,
tacky McMansions packed tight in Dallas sprawl.
Square green reservoirs, brown rivers, azure pools
in tiny backyards. Red tennis courts. Stands of trees
surround castles of oil money and speculators, dusty
flat every direction, an endless expanse, pointless. It's
a relief to pull away from land, leave far below the barrier
islands demarcated by vacation homes where waves crash
silently in white parallel lines. The beleagured Gulf of Mexico,
stippled like the skin of a basketball, its surface doesn't seem
to move, nor do Very Large Crude Carriers also frozen in place,
movements too small to be seen from 7 miles up. And our speed,
550 mph, feels vague, imperceptible. Could it be we're hanging still
in space as the earth spins under us, our black streak of jet exhaust
just superfluous? My belly jiggles half full of airport egg and cheese
bagel, palms sweat, wing bounces up and down, strange new straining
sounds from the relentless engines as I wait for my death. No great loss.
 
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