TROPICAL DEPRESSION

You’re a real morning-after pill
is what she said. (A canceled flight
kept me there the night before.) Grim
business of approach, avoidance.
Someone had planted a small bomb
in her fuselage. Not my baby
I said. Well it’s not just yours
is what she said. A fetus circling
nine months above O’Hare, waiting
for a landing slot. Ground control
to Major Mom, it’s getting very hard.

In my dreams the pilot’s Nixon
and we’re going down. In the belly
button of the storm, the wind’s skin
is soft and wet, but bending trees
snap like white trash husbands’ tempers.
A palm is a palm is not true.
When its roots tear out, it’s trash. Burn
it. Smell sulfur leaves twist inside
flames. Her morning-after breath
is a whole rich breakfast in bed
of discontent, expensive yellow
grief. Subway trains vacuum tunnels
clean with suction just by passing through.

The departure board gives a range
of flights, shuffles them with nervous
clicking and presents again: choose
yours. Tom over there, he drinks. Dick
screws around. Harry prefers nonstop
TV. This is a training film.
Observe the behavior of these
subjects. Does it crack a bell? When
I grab my flight, the stew’s hip bumps
my head as she walks down the aisle
and the pilot’s map displays each
couple in the path of the storm.

Formica fractures at this speed
of hate. Stay in the tub, hide, hold
your breath, breathe. By tomorrow’s light,
she’ll disperse and be downgraded
to a tropical depression.
Back to normal. Rain will fall more
slowly then, dirtying what’s left.