The President Flies Over

By Patricia Smith b. 1955 Patricia Smith

Aloft between heaven and them,

I babble the landscape—what staunch, vicious trees,

what cluttered roads, slow cars. This is my

country as it was gifted me—victimless, vast.

The soundtrack buzzing the air around my ears

continually loops ditties of eagles and oil.

I can’t choose. Every moment I’m awake,

aroused instrumentals channel theme songs,

speaking

what I cannot.

I don’t ever have to come down.

I can stay hooked to heaven,

dictating this blandness.

My flyboys memorize flip and soar.

They’ll never swoop real enough

to resurrect that other country,

won’t ever get close enough to give name

to tonight’s dreams darkening the water.

I understand that somewhere it has rained.

Source: Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press, 2008)

Biography

Patricia Smith, who has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives,” is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler (2008), a chronicle of the human and environmental cost of Hurricane Katrina and nominated for a National Book Award, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection published by Coffee House Press. Her poems have been published in The Paris Review and . . .

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