Elegy: Airport

Then there was snow 
                                    on a plane's dead wing, 
over the hull that stretched like a seedpod, 
killing the windshield, 
                                    clogging the flaps, 
dying and dying in the pall of night. 

— 

Then it occurred to me: petal-like, 
like petals detached and adrift on a breeze 
or down from a vase-full, 
                                        where they'd wilt and curl, 
the blossoms that nodded 
                                        on a curving stem. 

— 

It is, perhaps, better,
                                    is mercy and numb-- 
but I couldn't believe it. 
The airport was still and the snow just died 
on the corpselike planes 
                                        in their vanishing rows. 

Copyright © 2006 Kevin Prufer All rights reserved
from The New Republic
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission