Will Not Come Back

The jet-drone of the river



     is deafening, shocked metal



on sheet of black glass, the rotator



 



     a shriek of rattle-heat, power



into motion, limbs blown



     back. High above, flock of shrikes,



 



dark ornaments in branches



     leafless, bleached—



a botched dividing, scrawled



 



     before winter, before



freak fractals of snow,



     before the fracked earth



 



shatters far beneath.



     I am but factual. Higher,



in the black, unblinking



 



     light of actual aircraft, of flight



quiet as vectors. But up there nothing



     moves: is it Venus, is it some star’s



 



last siren, the workday over,



     compression over, light’s



factory-whistle and called up years ago



 



     I am with you flying on aluminum wings



of no one’s making, black cows like rivets



     gridding the brown field below,



 



ice sheathing spiked turf,



     sharp-tip, stalk, flat-feather—



from soil these thousand beaks



 



     hissing. We enter an eddy



of cloud, the world



     whitewashed away,



 



as outside us the hum grows,



     pale, hard, coiled,



like a goiter in a bull’s throat.



 



     And is it in me now—



muttering, all sides



     the heavy, engined river,



 



a hand dark as thirst raw



     on my tongue,



when I am numb, when I



 



     am held down,



when my eyes blow



     open: again the nerve the startle



 



the lurch of lift-off.