Emergency Landing
by K. E. Duffin
The jet, having skidded to a seaplane halt and spun,
becomes a floating crucifixion
hatching mortals, dark inchworms inching out,
tentative, in the icy air. The stiff, flung-out
arms have become aquatic angel’s wings.
It resembles some holy, ridiculous tableau, floating
on river currents. Those who just escaped the Last
Judgment seem about to break into song, a coatless
diptych chorus whose division
into left and right turns out to have no higher meaning.
Water laps at their feet. The birds—churned
to bits by the engine and burned—
were on their way somewhere too, a meditative vee
mashed into fragrant sacrificial smoke. Three
boats like gentle dogs nose the buoyant calamity.
Fire, water, death, and birds, one a metal fake. See
the long, white, shuddering wake of Icarus
who survived the birth of chaos.
Copyright © 2017 by K. E. Duffin.