ANXIETY
by Anthony DeGregorio
(for Charles Simic)
When
the dull
groan
of a
single-engine
plane
grows
louder &
louder
before
it comes
into view,
you
assume without
pause
it is
heading to
the ground
at an
unimaginable
angle
rather
than just
getting closer,
still
so high and
safely suspended.
And
when it is
visible directly overhead
in the
bright
mid-afternoon October sun,
you
sense
something is wrong with its flight path.
That
the nose is
dipping, the
wings
shaking like
a body
captive
to a
severe demonic fever
trying
to warm
itself
with
involuntary
muscle movements.
It passes
out of
sight
still
high in the
sky,
steady
on a
straight unwavering course.
Then
you begin
waiting, counting seconds:
One
thousand one,
one thousand two, one thousand three . . .
Bracing
for the
crash. The mechanical exclamation of
metal against earth,
the
fierce
explosion, the bone-shattering vibrations, an earthquake.
The
impact like a
meteor hitting, destroying the dinosaurs
and
sending the
entire planet into chaos.
The
burst of
flames and rising dust clouds
turning
the pale
blue and white mountains of sky
into
an orange
cast of ghost lands and echoing screams.
It is
not merely
the hallucinatory belched breath cloud
of the
strong
coffee you gulped down earlier,
burning
your
throat, drunk quickly to quench
a morning
thirst
for clarity,
or the
exhale of a
sharp autumnal
dip
in temperature
behind all this.
It is
the color
you now paint everything.
Erasing
the sky as
well as the solid ground beneath you.
It is
the inescapable
destiny of a soul trapped in a dream.
A nightmare
of
excessive worry every second.
This
is what you
tell yourself
as if
that
awareness alone
will
ease the
constant disquiet.
As if
a diagnosis
was anything other than a name
to call
out to the
shadows
in the
middle of a
particularly long night.
Anthony DeGregorio’s writing
has appeared or is scheduled to appear in various publications, including Libre,
Abandoned Mine, Italian America Magazine, Aromatica Poetica,
Bloom, Nowhere, Wales Haiku Journal, Polu Texni,
and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.
He taught writing at
Manhattanville College for twenty years, and in another life or two or three he
worked in various capacities for the Department of Social Services, much of
that time while teaching at night. Prior to that is anyone’s guess, but don’t
let that stop you.
