On a (mile) higher plane
Really out of breath, in heaven, or anyway
30,000 feet closer to it
these two sit back down in their seats.
Beaming. Tingling. Smiling. Sex in the bathroom.
The high consciousness of the Mile High Club
just got higher.
The man, Zorro, says to her, Emmeline Pankhurst
(the names they gave themselves, meeting as strangers
in the airport bar), “I feel so open and generous and
really humane after making love with you like that.
Even if it was in a room of aluminum
and mirrors over blue toilet water.
May I say something, Emmeline? I want to
tell you something. I need to.”
She smiles at him, go on.
“Watching the Broncos game back there
in the airport bar, I thought to myself: making women
do all that cheerleading is sexist! And cold!
But look here—I’m not against an ostentatious display
of skin. And I’m not a puritan, believe me, I’m a hedonist,
but I say what about men as cheerleaders, too?”
“I was hoping you’d say something like that,”
says Pankhurst. “I had a feeling you were a good guy,
back at the bar.”
“Well,” says Zorro, “can I say something else, and say
it simply, no nuance, no timidity, no stalling? Ok.
I am sick to the gills of sexism. Anyway …
I know there must be women—men too—who’d love
to see men out there undulating to a touchdown!
I think the pilot of this jet would. He gave me that look,
I think.”
“This look?” Emmeline turns to Zorro; her eyes
roll slowly still into sharp focus; green diamonds in a stream.
“Yes, that one. Like this one,” says Zorro; his eyes like warm
brown chestnuts, roasting on an open … you know.
“So, Zorro, shall we repair to the Room of Blue Waters?”
The jet, contagious with generosity and humanity
goes above 30,000 feet to 60,000 feet, and then into orbit
everyone smiling
free drinks
stars in their eyes.
BEEN OUT OF SCHOOL WAY TOO LONG
Come and get my poems, enroll in my school of poetry, make yourself at home and don't worry,
it's not that kind of poetry school; the cafeteria is much more Pumpkin Pie and Hush Puppies
than Cassoulet and Coq au Vin, though those last two are marvelous, blackened, with a side saucer of Twinkie cream.