Our fliers graze streetcars in St. Louis, snatch
ornaments off steeples in Omaha, buzz
water towers in Philadelphia.
I tell the boys,
let’s stage an air war over Manhattan to help
Colonel Billy Mitchell. He claims planes beat
battleships, he tells the military planes can
threaten the U.S.A.
Our Red Standards loop the Battery, break away, roll,
slip below the crown of the Woolworth Building, zoom
above sidewalks on Broadway,
roar past
the windows of skyscrapers. New Yorkers take it all
in stride. We gambol above Times Square,
hover over trees in Central Park,
a million look up.
Traffic stops. We are famous! Tabloid photographers
adore air war, Evening Graphic prints it all.
We are getting rich! Mitchell is still
in trouble.