"Deserted Airfield."
"Green lights at the end of the world still wink.
Cold frogs hop in the sunken runway.
The isinglass windows crackle, and smiles
on the ghosts of the zeros light the wings with rising suns.
The weather reports say, ground all light aircraft.
Lash the hobbled planes tight to the ground.
[INAUDIBLE] Pterodactyls-- some leopard-spotted,
some pale with tires sunken--
with aileron struts and shields concave to the world,
they shudder.
Green hops over the marsh.
Icing, the runway cracks.
A pavement for pilots flown to meteorological weathers
and zones where leather jackets never
crack and Mae Wests float, inflating the raft of the dark.
Wind ravages these relics.
Strumming in golden radar, sunburned tin foil
peels in chattering strips from the nose.
Chennault and his Flying Tigers lumber out
of the bare, guillotined heart of the hangar.
The tower, garrotted by time, looks on.
Strafing old hippodromes, they take it all on the chin.
Wrenches tap and flak pries their secrets
from holes like worms from the whirlybird morning.
The scuttlebutt of morning breathes, "Asia."
They sigh and settle.
Himalayan junk men love these stinking Bears, these Tigers,
and these fighters.
The cables jumped and hanging, saying "jump"
so clearly that the goggled morning lies
dead in the pilot's seat with the radio stuttering, "Over."