Lucy Biederman
Two Poems
Airliner
His airplane was in a building made for an airplane
“That’s enough of that”
to nestle into. Its whole top floor was the airplane.
On the floor underneath the floor with the airplane,
slices of black-olive pizza lay on the floor. The airplane
stewardesses would not be serving food while the airplane
was in flight, so I told him to eat the pizza before the airplane
started boarding. He was appealing. The airplane
wasn’t taking off for hours. We went to the airplane
floor of the building, to kill time and check out the airplane.
There was a flap to crawl through to get to the airplane,
like a pet door. I forced a cough when I saw the airplane,
so I wouldn’t gasp: among the last rows of the airplane
was an extra row, squeezed in tighter than any on any airplane
I’d seen. Sitting there would mean suffocation by airplane.
Neither of us spoke. We looked at his airplane
ticket. His seat was in the second-to-worst row of the airplane—
the row directly behind the airplane
torture row. It was less like an airplane
than like a Middle Ages misery-ship. I won’t ride an airplane
again, I thought. But I didn’t say it, since his airplane
ride loomed. I hated the dinky newfangled idea of airplane,
the smell of magazines on an airplane,
the taste of cold gum on an airplane,
trying to breathe but every breath ends in airplane,
trying to move but anywhere you put your head is airplane.
Feet first we slipped through the door and out of the airplane.
I was in love with him, though I didn’t know his name.They clap and boo his plane to Texas
While all the same on forty years I love him
Holding up laundry the line grows anxious
Brown trees drip in the Sunday arboretum
Who’s sitting in his Rabbit in the parking lot?
Never hungry but they would sing songs
All scenes of winter begin with a clock
When you love my little anything is gone
Afternoon Delight, Jerusalem Garden
Smudged are the m&ms; and sun in Lafayette
Roll down Delmar with where-have-those-hands-been
Such low-rent ghosts will begin to forget
There are two perfect workers and neither belong
The still sky’s blue like Nouveau Bootcut Long
