Tipton Poetry Journal

Takeoff Lucas Smith Across the aisle a bulbous Salvadorean (I snooped her passport at check-in) crosses herself for takeoff. Just then her shoes fall off and she smiles at me acknowledging her infirmity hers a different strategy for dealing with the chance of flight. Mine is to scan the terminal and find someone who seems like they don't deserve to die today Why, I could not say. Maybe they look aloof or mild sometimes they are shushing a child but always that partial divinity that will save me and the surplus cargo The Salvadorean's shoes lie fallow The way housefires and bushfires look sublime from planes, ants driving along the freeway planes are no more real than clouds but this is not a good theme for mere man who survives by granting divinity.

Lucas Smith, a writer from Orange County, California and the Gippsland region of Australia, currently resides in Melbourne. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Angle, Cadaverine, Cordite Poetry Review, Curator, Dappled Things, El Portal, otoliths and The American Aesthetic.

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