Air Show Poem by Steven Federle

Cloudless thunder
splits the sky
as white planes rise
on red fire.

Vertically
to apogee,
they rocket
then fall
screaming
back to ground-
zero

to soar again in glory
as the cheering crowd
shrieks for more!

From my backyard,
I see small birds reel,
made awkward with fear
when the fighter steeply banks
just past my line
of defiant trees.

The afterburner’s thrust
can both exhilarate
and annihilate.

Proud simians,

faster than eagles
dropping like
thunderbolts,

we are perfect
raptors -
we are masters
of gravity.