MEMPHIS BELLE

Head in the Hollywood clouds,
my wet-behind-the-ears license in
wallet, I taxi the old Pontiac down
the driveway and lumber out onto
Pleasant Street… fondling the stick,
and then gunning that Flying Fortress
up to speed, and droning off into a
wild blue yonder on the tiny tailwind
of my little one-windsock-town life,

flying my freelance recon missions…
deftly yawing to the right of
those evenly spaced yellow
‘tracers’ zinging back at me
up the middle of my personal
highway to hell and back, the
soul-jarring thunder-flak of
the potholes jarring the
warbird’s underbelly… 

and then barnstorming
the wide sweeping curve
to that truss-bridge target
way-the-hell-and-gone
down there at the bottom of
the valley and then buzz-cutting 
straight through it, scrambling
all those Nazi pigeons
from here to eternity...

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