Way, On This Plane All Face The Same
       

And yet we shouldn't just sit
There and beat up a silver bag of peanuts

Because we don't want
To use our teeth on it.

If we're willing to die some,
Perhaps heroin

Can restart our lives. But
To sob hard out of earshot

Of a beloved — what's the point?
Life's a transmogrifying thought

Inside the soft and long
Body of death. Who knows

What I or anyone else
Means? Let's stop cutting ourselves

On metaphor alone.
If one could only fuck the person

In one's diary ... well, let's ask the air waiter
(That otiose, beautiful stranger).

See if he thinks moaning helps the experience
Of pain. If he quotes

The lion in The Wizard ef Oz,
Tell him about your layover with gastric lavage.

If he quotes The Bible, remind him
That on the last day of Creation —

The ancient translators were inept —
God didn't rest, He wept.

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Copyright © 2017 Mark Yakich All rights reserved
from The Dangerous Book of Poetry for Planes
Eyewear Publishing
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission