Dropping Fuel over China

James Ragan

Let the engine's loss of vowels begin.
Grind the tooth's blade, now the mind's
thin worm of denial through an earphone.
When the steward speaks, sweep the lone
bone from the dinner plate and weep.
The last meal is light. The silk
the child downwind weaves in breath is worn.
Weep for the imagination's useless fire,
how the moment's fact loses what is prior,
and for the coiling smoke along the wings,
feed it water. The rotor, sleek as the Rolls
a dream could ride in, has coughed its soul
into your breathing, stuttering, losing weight.
Death will visit you in a foreign state.