Flight to Catalina
From At the Edge of the Body

On a darkening planet
speeding
toward our death,
we pierce a rosy cloud
& hit clean air,
we glide above
the red infernal smog,
we leave the mammon city
far behind.

Here -- where the air is clear
as nothing,
where cactus pads
are prickly as stars,
where buffalo chips
are gilded by the sun
& the moon tastes like a peppermint--
we land.

"Have we flown to heaven?"
I inquired
(& meant it).
The airport was a leveled
mountaintop.
We took the cloudbank
at a tilt
& bumped the runway
just ten degrees from crashing,
certain death.

If I'm to die, God,
let me die flying!
Fear is worse than death--
I know that now.
The cloudbanks of my life
have silver linings.
Beyond them:
cactus pads,
clear earth,
dear sky.

© Erica Mann Jong