Something less grim.
A few years ago, when the skyjacking thing
was at its height, I saw on the 6 o'clock news
that they had come up with a psychological profile
to catch potential skyjackers.
And I was going to be doing some flying in the next few weeks,
and that terrified me because I knew I
would exhibit all the symptoms.
This poem is called "On hearing the airlines will use
a psychological profile to catch potential skyjackers."
Mouthful.
"They will catch me as sure as the checkout
girls in every Woolworths have caught me.
The badge of my imagined theft shining in their eyes.
I'll be approaching the ticket counter and knowing myself,
my selves will affect the nonchalance of a baron.
That is what they'll be looking for.
I'll say, certainly is nice that the airlines are taking
these precautions, and the man behind the counter
will press a secret button.
There'll be a hand on my shoulder.
This will have happened before in a dream, and in a back room
they'll ask me, why were you going to do it?
I'll say, you wouldn't believe I just wanted to get to Cleveland.
No, they'll say.
So I'll tell them everything-- the plot to get the Pulitzer
Prize in exchange for the airplane,
the bomb in my pencil, heroin and the heel of my boot.
Inevitably, it'll be downtown for booking, newsmen
pumping me for deprivation during childhood--
the essential cause.
There is no one cause for any human act,
I'll tell them, thinking finally,
a chance to let the public in on the themes of great literature.
And on and on, celebrating myself, offering no resistance,
assuming what they assume, knowing in a sense there's no
such thing as the wrong man."