It’s 7:50 a.m. in LA I’m on my way
to LAX forgot to pack my hair dryer
who cares as long as I have my Xanax can’t fly
without it though Brett my meditative friend
says try just once not to take it,
but I can’t try today, want to zone out
listen to the pilot’s voice, I think he said
his name is Gary, as the woman next to me
spills into my seat, chews something
with peanuts, keeps hitting me with her elbow,
I focus on Gary, on the clouds, as my mind blurs
did I close the gate, will my son pay his doctor’s bill,
will my husband talk to himself the whole week I’m gone?
A child in the back of the plane shrieks.
I remember my son crying like that once,
had been awakened in the night, our neighbor
was mowing his lawn or starting his motorcycle,
it was something loud that woke my son, and we couldn’t
console him, no milk, no holding, and this child
in the back of the plane continues screeching
as we lift above the clouds, as Gary tells us the headwinds
are good, we’ll make good time, I like to hear good as I fly
as the Xanax releases through my blood as this child
screams needles out of his body, I wonder about
the neighbor who woke my son in Laurel Canyon
when we lived in paradise when none of us talked
to ourselves, and here’s that elbow again jutting
into my rib, she’s fallen asleep, so close I lean
into the window my mouth against the glass kissing
the clouds below, the clouds taking me to Florida,
Gary warning the turbulence is bound to come,
always comes, my roast beef on rye in my purse under
the seat, a sandwich I’ll forget to eat, it’s his ears,
I think, that poor kid’s ears, why don’t they give him
something to suck.