On the filthy metal interior,
Carver’s book lay open.
I’d spotted it while
wiping the dust from my eyes then picked it up.
By this point, I was chewing sand,
and my underwear was riding my backside.
I looked out over the desert
—the sun baking the air—
and for a moment,
I thought I saw the New York skyline.
And then I thought I saw you out there
in that inferno—
almost jumped out to get you.
I'd have jumped out of that thing to get you, you know?
It was about six o’clock in the evening
where you were.
I pictured you at home with the dog,
the radio humming softly in the background.
Our ETA was forty-five minutes.
The flight had been a real smoothie so far.
I shut Carver’s book
and stuffed it back into my pack.
Exhaled.
Closing my eyes,
I drifted in and out,
and in and out,
and in and out,
to the roaring hum of the propellers,
holding us high above the dunes—
those red-hot, biblical dunes.