Windsock

Sasha has wasted most of her youth
Trying to be amazed by flight.
Yes, when the jet engines bite
She feels a pressure in her crotch
As if she needs to wee
But there’s none of the rapture
She ought to be feeling.
For millennia humankind
Has hugged the planet’s surface
Like raindrops on a window
And yet gazing through cloudbank tufts
At hedged meadows like lizard scales,
Tree-prickled hills, towns of fifty,
Sixty thou and lakes like chips of
Frosted glass
She is blasé as a bored princess.
They bring her cashews.
She watches one film that has Steve Martin
And another which does not
All the while not caring
About the sackfuls of cool clean air
Between her and the hills
And the towns
And the seas.
So it’s not until the hollow thud
Where engine one gives up
And the black fog
And the after-bangs
And all through the church roof-steep descent
Sasha’s clapping her hands
And her face is a grip-grin
And her joy bubbles up like champagne.