Through the plane’s skull-
sized window I saw fires dot
Guerrero:
Oil field,
carpet bomb—
The poor burning garbage, the captain announces. Nothing, apocalyptic.
They found her skull behind the dumpster
body half-burned in a Mickey Mouse blanket.
Hands missing—invisible,
I mean no more clocks to set back.
Everything but the face raptured.
Another summer jet-set.
I land in Mexico City,
Baku,
the latest re-pronounced New York,
peel back the window shade
like anything but a scalp,
mistake sun-set for sun-rise.
I saw newborns flung from hospital windows,
my mother whispered inside our hotel suite.
A trick of light. Any minute
now it begins: sun-rise,
-set, for 6:30 p.m.
your in-flight service
I almost wrote in-flight
program,
pogrom.
I know people who pay extra to never be red-
eyed. I know people who have done every un-
scorched country in Western-somewhere.
Until I turned 21,
only my name had done any
border, twice,
three times, any time a Mexican cousin
needed to borrow hyphenated State.
Three myselfs: in steady-state,
Another summer jet-set.
I land in New York,
Baku.
The factory is a bar
the hospital is a mall now.
Every window body-
sized:
This trick re-frames the sky,
thus exonerating the window.
Like the one where the guy lifts
a blanket and makes a building
gone:
My mother did him better.
Let me show you how to forget the worst things you’ll ever see.
She takes a blade to the window.
Like this:
Hand-steady, the knife blunts the glass,
Hollows the skull
Trims the horizon.