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Poem

THE LANDING

The big jetliner banked sharply left,
descending out of a bad thunderstorm,
lined up on the runway, its six landing lights
like a big chandelier suddenly turned up by
an unseen hand, the passengers sweating and
shaking, sure that death was at hand only
seconds ago, the way I felt at age eleven
facing Wallace Carter, his ugly brother Aaron,
my fists balled up like tiny hams, my skinny
arms tense, ready to take a beating and give it 
back good if I could

“Go home to your mama, boy!  
You ain’t got no balls, you just a fool!
Git, now, ‘fore we change our minds!” 
  
The pilot, former Navy, had seen some  before,
intense anti-aircraft, heat-seeking missiles, then 
sudden bad weather, swaying carrier deck in the
South China Sea, the Straits of Hormuz 
but thunderstorm turbulence a minor cosmic
provocation, no cause for apprehension
just focus, patience and skill

He could overshoot the carrier, take this baby
screaming into a near vertical climb, execute a
roll, break the sound barrier and then, like
the bad dog he is, lay her down on that deck 
and damn any seaman who’s got something
to say! But he caught himself in time……  

“I gotch y’all!” he said
“We’re comin’ in soft and slow.
There ain’t nothin’ in our way 
but home y’all! Nothin’ in our
way but home!”

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