Why Reason Can’t Overcome an Irrational Fear

The phobia whispers to me that I am special,
His chosen, fondly disheveling my nerves with his fingers.
Statistics, he scoffs, are for those without destinies,
Who are less safe in cars, more likely hit by lightning
Than to plummet out of the sky in an aeroplane.
Logic, seducing with cool, promiscuous numbers,
Will exchange me for another.  But dread will not leave me.

We are soulmates, he says, and in another death
We invented flight.  Remember the sun on our backs,
The feathers loosening from the sticky wax
When the heavens disowned us like two meteors
And we shattered the flat mirror of the ocean?

Most thoughtful of bridegrooms, on our honeymoon
He holds my fidgety heart as our flight takes off
And I weep for love of everyone on the plane,
For the earth, a robin’s egg in a porcelain cup,
Because none of them knows they are doomed should I fall asleep,
Blink my dry vigilance, get cozy with hope,
That only the force of my fear is lifting us up.

© A. E. Stallings—