The great American travelogue

pilots are a problem

On our annual fledgling trial

we simulate

a weak heart

striking on the hour

Plaster palisades

and we are off, gear up

Taxing, straining

and coaxing

we join

the boundary layer

into the fog’s dough we are pressed

No enroute concert

would be complete until

we had marked, coded

and squawked

Invisible beacons

slipping down the ILS

gear down, we land on opium tires