“This is your captain: We are going down. We are all going down…together.”
from Laurie Anderson’s “From the Air”
LAST WINTER
In the last few waking hours,
you watch the world through
unblinking eyes.
People become impenetrable
shadows, dark birds,
until everything turns black
on the outside.
There are no tears.
Instead, you remember
a building—draw back the curtain,
and there is a nest
of winter goslings.
You leave the barn door open
until it’s all a hurricane
of feathers and winter snow
inside. Underneath, it is yellow
and maroon and salt.
You wrap the young
in another winter blanket and
put the curtain back in place,
forgetting the old barn light—
flickering, threatening them
with impending
darkness.
*
inspired by Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone, on the conditions of Marburg and Ebola on the human immune system.
Find Laurie Anderson’s “From the Air” here.