Member Poem

You may think that the most important

piece of equipment on this passenger jet

is the undercarriage,

or the recently serviced turbofan engine,

or the locking mechanism on the cockpit door.

Or the enhanced GPWS,

or the pitot-static system.

You may be afraid that the flight director

will freeze,

that the rear pressure bulkhead is not airtight.

You may be concerned that human error will occur

over at control tower,

or you may be anxious

that the security check you just passed

to ensure no incendiary device is on board,

in some innocuous soda can, for instance,

has failed.

If there’s enough fuel.

If autopilot somehow flipped to descent.

When you’ve run through the list in your mind,

don’t forget to fret

about one more thing,

the two things that are actually flying

this crate,

two precise, acutely sensitive optical instruments,

and the left one just got fried

when someone in the rundown high-rise opposite

(bypassing every operational sensor

and every moral censor)

shone a military-strength laser

(through the cockpit, into the orbit of the eye,

though pupil, lens and vitreous body)

onto the pilot’s retina.

First published in The New Verse News, 5 December 2015.