Thomas D. Reynolds

Barnstorming

Our plane continuing its descent, 
the world transforms into a glorified map 
spread out over an immense table. 
Turning away from the porthole, 
I stare with land-lubber’s stomach 
over landscapes of the cabin, 
past the white desert of my arms 
and my blue jean’s wrinkled waves.
 
Gripping the seat, 
I focus on the rice crispies treat 
my nephew absent-mindedly carried aboard. 
I observe a fly crawl from the plastic 
freeing itself from a brief imprisonment. 
Taking a bite of its unexpected lunch, 
the fly tacks off and circles the hangar.
 
Fearless, it performs feats of aerial skill, 
first a steep dive, then a loop-to-loop, 
skimming the dense jungle of tangled rope, 
climbing the mountains of my nephew’s shirt. 
as its engine cuts in and out for effect. 
How dizzy its passengers must be, 
glancing sideways from tinted windows 
as my brother’s sea-green shirt spins past.
 
Performance over, the fly circles the wrapper, 
acknowledging the appreciation of the crowd. 
Above, mauve clouds hovering in a vinyl sky. 
Believing its recklessness was arrogance, 
I overlooked the power of his devotion, 
every deft roll or dive edged with abandon. 
Circling the hangar, making a slow approach, 
the fly suddenly ascends and grazes the sky.
 
Passionate about no landscape in particular, 
but deeply nostalgic for the ground, 
I trace our descent with thumb on glass. 
Like a wingwalker, I raise both hands 
in a perilous attempt to enclose the fly 
but failing, regrip the seat for support. 
My love of earth can’t compare to the fly’s, 
gripping his chunk and taking a bite.

Lester

Drive by and you might miss it, 
a tract of ragged bluegrass, 
with two faded wheel ruts 
leading to a decrepit truck.
 
Smoke lags from rusted barrels, 
stench of rubber and wire. 
A leaking battery 
floods the grass, blade by blade.
 
The home of Lester Straily 
opens out of red clay dirt, 
an oak door with frozen hinge 
and ten steps leading to darkness.
 
Or is it the sun that makes it seem so, 
overpowering lantern light 
that illuminates the gray cot, 
newspaper stack, concrete walls.
 
Lester’s sour on the government, 
“almost as big as the dang fool sky!” 
Bought his house to tear it down 
and bury it beneath a reservoir.
 
“They ripped me like a tornado, 
tossed me like a fencepost, 
drove me into the dirt, 
but they can’t doze down a cellar.”
 
Lester’s face is flaked and calloused, 
like a dried-out river bed. 
His eyes the color of antifreeze 
drained from an abandoned truck.
 
Two fingers grip a lit stogie, 
skin so scarred and blackened 
they seem like burnt branch ends 
smoldering on the edges of fire.
 
Lester walks like he’s underwater, 
as if he moved fast he’d float away. 
Slow and careful as a mud turtle, 
pushing himself across the earth.