The stalling plane fell,
A toy, yawing back on its tail,
Tilting left and down
And down.
The boy’s dad at the stick,
Frozen,
Face immobile,
Almost careless as they fell;
He, his mother, and his father,
And a stranger, next to him,
Tumbling above Montana
Prairie hills surging
Nearer
And nearer.
The stranger clenched the boy;
The tail dragger impacted a rising knoll.
The engine clanged and broke,
Dirt enveloped the shattered cabin.
Silence smothered cacophony.
Conscious of being dragged
Through a gash in the fuselage
Out into open air,
The boy saw little,
Couldn't make out the stranger's face.
His mother came through the side of the plane
A Cesarean section, reversed,
The boy's hope reborn
At the emergence of his mother.
She appeared dazed,
He thought, unruffled,
Dusty with a smearing of bright red lipstick
Stretching up from the corner of her mouth
To the edges of her right ear.
The boy knew it must be blood.
His father lay,
Crumpled oddly,
Head twisted between
Stick and dashboard;
Right arm somehow
Lolling through the fuselage.
Blood smeared the arm, the head.
Everything still,
Motion slow...
Echoes.
The stranger moved on hands and knees,
Inspected the boy
His mother,
Pulled them away
From wreckage,
Surveyed the scene.
Turning then to the man
Twisted and still,
Grotesque within the shell,
The stranger gazed.
Gasping, the boy jolted.
Saw,
Thought he saw,
His father’s hand jerk,
Move up and backward to his face.
The boy heard,
Thought he heard,
His father sigh.
Fear surging
The son,
Caught in a wave,
Realized his first response,
Horror,
A sense of bondage returning,
Having glimpsed,
If only for a few seconds,
Freedom.