BELIEVE
ONCE THEY’RE GONE WE CAN’T BELIEVE IT
She eyes me suspiciously It is Spring 2015 Vicious landing
Sleet +hail frozen citizenry All of the women I see: eyes
glazed over dull-skinned +gnarly One threatens to bite me
Not so Harriet Quimby who on another fierce April day flew
from Dover to Calais her signature purple silk flight-suit &
seal-skin stole luffing in the breeze
1912 an open single prop plane Ghostly pale +gorgeous Harriet
died in an air-show crash later that same Spring Her debris washed
up on Wrangel Island home of the Wooly Mammoth contemporaries
of the pyramid builders in Egypt
Love Dalen researcher at Wrangel (U of Sweden) posits that
Harriet Quimby may in fact be one of the first documented
extraterrestrials Like humans Mammoths have 2 sets of
chromosomes Harriet had 3 On why Love devoted his life
to the study of Wolly’s his analyst remains silent
Today walking on the frigid streets of my city a sign said:
It’s true even if it hasn’t happened yet
__
No Spring 2015