poem 256 of a poem a day for 2012

dreams don’t need punctuation (a prose-y poem)

looking out the plane’s windows

I could see we were flying into thunder clouds

lightning arced from angry billow

to angry billow in a sea of gray roil

the captain came on the cabin speakers

and said we would be going through evasive maneuvers

and that we had better buckle up our lives

and from that point on we began to climb

and dive and lift and turn away from Newton’s laws

engine screaming, rivet clawing an emergency landing

and repairs in a warm clime  

between the hotel and the terminal

I realized that I had bonded

with the passengers immediately around me

as we were still sitting grouped together

in some sort of soft bubbled, comforted cage

walking through the terminal

in this land of dark skin people

with salt in their expressions

someone passed to me a capuchin monkey

which perched on my shoulder

and pined for treats

as we made our way to the hotel rooms

we passed a variety of little vignettes

as if someone had gutted open a television

and the entirety of its late night content spilled out

the elevators in the lobby were jammed

and I decided to defer to the next one

as I let other passengers and guests use them before me

when my turn came I smiled at the monkey

petting my ear as it was smiling back at me

as I was almost forgetting what floor my room was on

when the elevator doors opened

I heard screaming down the hall

where tall windows drove the light into us

this passenger had hurtled herself

through the window thirty floors up

yelling that glass towers couldn’t hold Heaven

and every sound became a warbled frozen thing

and we looked out at the jagged glass

and felt the wind and at last we knew

to say goodbye because our plane

hadn’t really landed here

as we were only dreaming

we were still alive…

EJR ©