Stunning Weather

Shark-infested liquids are good
only if you're a shark - even then, the silence.
And when searchers find shoes still laced
but split down the sole, your flight
is probably not going well.
Crash site is not a tourist attraction,
heavy fog, soggy schoolbooks everywhere.
And what of heaven when they pull
badly mauled bodies from the sea,
school children smithereened on a Friday,
the quiet pond of reconciliation
now an inaccessible disaster area.
The wind rose as the twin-engine Fokker
sunk off Mackay. A shiver of sharks
driven, like the rest of us, by hunger
not even thankful for the falling manna,
a matter-of-fact movement through them-infested waters,
battle gray masses lumbering
from some spark, some engine, some voice.

First published in The Jabberwock Review, February 2021