David A. Goodrum

Flyover Country

In Indiana I would stare at the birthing
of contrails by jets heading west
‌     filled with passengers who would never
‌     set foot in flyover country;
‌     the hot gas extruding from engines
‌     into loose, watery strands of cirrus.

My brother, looking up with me,
‌     struck by a golf ball hit from across the street,
‌     a small purple globe rising from his forehead.

* * *

I imagine the saddest people flying cross country
exhausted
‌     from dragging children through airports, hauling luggage,
‌     weightlifting them to the overheads, knees
‌     cramped against thin seats leaning back, elbowing
‌     over armrests, and in turbulent times grasping airsick bags
‌     and checking for exit paths
‌     just in case.

* * *

I remember nodding off
on summer nights as dad drove us home
‌     steering through the dark corn and soybean fields,
‌     swarms of insects splattering against the windshield
‌     caught, surprised, in mid-flight,
‌     entrails smearing the view of the road ahead.

* * *

In the middle of Indiana, I slept
among the long dead and the always dying,
‌     on land once located near the equator
‌     and covered by an ancient shallow sea,
‌     sedimental accumulations
‌     of the shells of marine invertebrates
‌     forming on the sea’s bottom and compacting
‌     into a bedrock graveyard of limestone.

* * *

Is the jet coming or going? If Spengler were here
it would be coming from somewhere.

‌     Watching the trail, and a second one, with changing
‌     wind patterns and broken reflections on the water,
‌     we know we’re the smooth flat stones
‌     we toss and skim across the lake.

David A. Goodrum is a writer and photographer living in Corvallis, Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have been published in Spillway, Star 82 Review, The Write Launch, and other journals. Additional work (both poetry and photography) can be viewed at davidgoodrum.com.