Erde und Himmel: a Sonnet
The picture on the page (this photo in the ad) was not of you. It looked like you, though. Can it be that something quite so thin and boring as casually leafing through an in-flight magazine might bring this gall
To breathing—in a moment, like a haar
Inside the chest, might cause a sudden pall
Of withered memories there where love’s own far-
Flung lights (like hesitant auroras) should
Have been? Not just a profile shaped like yours
But cloud of hair across clear brow … and could
The universe repeat those curvatures
Of earthy colored lip? I close my eyes.
The airplane lurches
……………….. in the empty skies.
[First published in Chapman]