Lock the high god, the sky god,
and his sideman, Skeets, travel
in flag-fitted coffins
behind a marching band
and a parachute platoon.
Eighteen pilots sweep
across the sky in V-formations,
showering rose petals,
and twenty cowboy actors on horseback
escort two hundred cars
driving slowly,
single file.
Viola rides alone in a studio limo.
(Ruby’s in charge at the church.)
Cameramen crowd Central Avenue.
Gaffers, grips, continuity girls,
seamstresses, stunt men, stunt women,
usherettes from the movie palaces,
and carnies from the carousel pier
fill porches and front yards.
Lock wing walked over red and yellow streetcars
scooting passengers on metal tracks.
He looped over men hammering
half-built houses in the hills,
soared above palms on new boulevards,
dove down on oil derricks nodding on dry flats.
He waggled his wings over swells of the metallic Pacific,
and he flew past tables at the Iowa picnic,
dropped a pitch onto a double-header,
buzzed a jazz concert, playing solos
with his wiry body hanging
from his huge hands.
Three miles long and a mile high,
my skywayman’s funeral rolls
toward Eternity Street,
Calle de Eternidad,
and the air cortège hooks
double-banner headlines.
Faster than hell can scorch a feather,
Fox moves up the release.