FLIGHT PATH

                    by Derek JG Williams 

​Beneath a blind sun, your plane lands
in Arizona. Its wings and tail

invisibly flicker. Strangers look up
from parking lots, they follow

your plane’s path. Its wheels find
tarmac gently. You touch down—   

jolted, glued again to this fat earth.
Touchdown! By chance we’ve come to live

this way. The pigskin under center; the breath
before the snap; the crowd looks on—  

they believe in the ball’s path.
Commercials scroll, flicker in hi-def. I watch

TV alone. I’ve watched hundreds of planes
crash. I’ve never been to the desert. 

photo by David Emitt Adams

Derek JG Williams puts words into rows both long and short. He's a graduate of the MFA program at UMass Boston and a 2016 Blacksmith House Emerging Writer. His poems are published or forthcoming in Plume, Best New Poets, Vinyl, Forklift Ohio, Salamander, Prairie Schooner, and New Ohio Review, among others. Derek currently lives in Arizona. Learn more about him at http://www.derekjgwilliams.com.