Airplanes
Annie Blake
airplanes can look as predictable as activists marching like altruistic soldiers
who are really there to kill.
airplanes can also look original and fleshy and stream
along like water within the bush
which reminds me of my childhood saturdays—i’m thinking
of those simple planes that ploughed the sky.
i prefer grey planes as they are about to hit
a storm. i love the way they open out.
and make me look up
rather than down at the road when i’m driving my car.
the clouds untangle and start to run. their porousness
is a release. the sky unseals to let the airplane glide through
but it becomes barely visible.
i don’t see its shine then, i see a shadow
and gunmetal hands kneading the dough.
Annie Blake’s work has been published or is forthcoming in The Hunger, The Slag Review, Sky Island Journal, Trampset, Anomaly Literary Journal, North of Oxford, Blue Heron Review, Mascara Literary Review, Red Savina Review, Antipodes, Uneven Floor, The Voices Project, Into the Void, Southerly, Hello Horror, and elsewhere. Her poem “These Grey Streets” was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize by Vine Leaves Literary Journal. A complete list of her published writing can be found at annieblakethegatherer.blogspot.com.