WINTER FLIGHT

For Mei-ling

We stood there talking
By the massive windows.
No moon or stars above Saint Louis.
The seven-forty-seven
Fish-eyed, looming in the glass,
Blared silver silver silver.
The frost had written
Hieroglyphs of death:
"I am the great sarcophagus
That steals your love away."
The rain was in my soul.
And Venus dying.
. . . . . . .
We stood there chatting
By the beastly windows.
In seven, six, five minutes
She would board the thing
That dwarfed the lesser silver birds.
The frost had written hieroglyphs of death
Across its bow: "I am the great sarcophagus
That steals your love away!"

Her husband talked of seasonings
And herbal cures and politics
Back home, and she in sweater, jeans,
And tennis shoes just smiled
Behind her glasses. She moved
In line and changed her yellow bag
From hand to hand. I thought
About the dead in Guanajuato.
The plane, it was the great horned owl
Among the other nightbirds.
The runways seemed like spaceramps
To take her to oblivion.
And now she shined the guillotine
With talk of picnic baskets I should
Buy for all my girlfriends,
Of virtues of all melons and green tea,
Of fruits to dull the passions
And seasalt seasalt seasalt!

I was young Shelley wailing:
"Great silver wolf, take me, take me,
The weakling of the herd!"

Loudspeakers, numbers, final calls,
The blur of public sounds and private
Voices. I lost my grip upon her hand
As she went down the tunnel, shouted
My farewell above the roar. And she
Was gone. And then the deluge.

A Hare Krishna handed me
The Book of Death.

. . . . . . .
Years afterwards,
The pain now as the faintest sketch
Of some grand painting,
Years afterwards I dreamt
She was a little girl
Climbing through the harmless folds
Of glass.
And still more years beyond,
So many years from here
I'll dream she is a silver bird
Before a silver mirror.

Max Edward Cordonnier
Revision of an 80's poem