Adagietto

After Mahler

Mellifluous in its ascent the plane took up,
took up and seemed to fend off tension—such that we
believed we could be viewing our own craft from far
away, atop some dormant thunderhead

          *

Redoubtable in its ascent the point reached out
reached out and strained to steel itself as though it summoned
strength by drawing breath from thinning air and held
the discord of some stirring thunderhead

          *

The first disturbance hits us when a wing
dips and scoops a measure of the white
abyss and drops it into the gut—
plunges it into the gut—
from where it sinks to feet as brittle as the floor

          *

Mellifluous in its ascending notes the jangle
jingle of the intercom subdued the cabin’s
atmosphere as though the pilot’s voice alone
could promise we had fallen in good hands

          *

Perhaps it is those tones that make us fall
into a dream in which the pilot stands
conducting in the aisle with a baton
whose point grows finned and honed
with each hypnotic saw

          *

And maybe it was sleep that made us dumb—
and kept us in our seats as he came on—
and brought the knifepoint glisteringly close—
and plunged it into the gut.