At the time—1969—the idea
of the infinite didn’t come into it.
Having changed from a jetliner
in Minneapolis to this smaller,
dimmer, louder plane, I felt only
immediate sensations: a buzz
in my body that increased when I touched
the wall with its constellations of gold
stars, the damp, smoke-filled air and its chill
on my legs, bare beneath the summer dress
I’d carefully chosen that morning in New York—
already a dream. Through a blinding blue window
hatched with fine silver threads the sky spread
in an even line over the yellow and green
squares of ground—like a picture in a book.
As the plane came down on uneven stairs
of air, I looked for the solitary roads and cars
and barns to which my attention had been drawn
to distract me from my stomach. The land was
so bare I could see the individual
weeds bent by the same wind that briefly lifted us
up as we hung over the runway, so real
as, roaring, our wheels touched the earth
and our propellers became visible, I can
still feel the lumbering U-turn we made
toward the terminal, not knowing I’d remember.