Archive > Vol. 18 no. 1

Tim Liardet

Address to the Long Haul
Travelers Set in a Blood-Red
Utero of Light

Fly blood-red and blissful. The early morning sun
that swallows the whole cabin, and fills it
with light as thick, as red, as amniotic fluid.
You think the ratchety old turboprop is some sort
of motherly heart-thump. The engine-whine the voice
traveling back down from the mouth. 

Knees too close to chin, you are unsure if this
is the tiny airplane which rides you, or you ride it.

That flat of ultraviolet red like a level lake
tilts with the wing-tip towards your first sight
of Boston, inlet and tower, constructing itself through cloud. 

Your feet higher up than you are, like hands, you climb
and will descend forever. This is how you were,
how you will be born. This is how you are born.