| This is where we live: south of rain, north of soil, at the level of strobe lightning on the night horizon – Valhalla's Fourth of July. My plastic cup of chardonnay quivers, quiets a fog of qualms in the cabin. We pay the price of being gods of distance who can't stop the plane from shaking like a snapped dishrag. I think of nursery rhyme giants bowling our heads. We are not giants, though we have mastered Odysseus' trick and zoom twixt Scylla and Charybdis, while Homer Simpson plays on the back of all the seats. Luggage in the compartments rattles. In cabin socks, we feel like imps in Olympus. Numb toes will touch down and we'll wheel our carry-ons down the escalators and try to locate improbable ground, find our balance on the freeway, in speed we need. *first appeared in Swink |
Rachel Dacus's new poetry
collection is Femme au chapeau (David Robert Books). It follows
her first collection, Earth Lessons and two poetry CDs, A
God You Can Dance and Singing in the Pandaleshwar Caves.
Her poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review's 10th Year Anthology, Bellingham
Review, Prairie Schooner, Swink and Ravishing DisUnities: Real
Ghazals in English. More of her writing can be found at www.dacushome.com. |