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Eric Gadzinski

TURBULENCE

The captain drawls apologies
for lighting the seatbelt sign.
The stewardess continues
handing out her perky peanuts.
20C sleeps, 20B reads
a newspaper, while 20A
grips the armrests,
sits up straighter,
reminds himself that this sickening
shudder and bounce of invisible
knots and whorls of air,
freaks of the wind, the wing
flexing the prospect of plummeting
upside down and screaming
through an insupportable emptiness
toward the toy world below
is only business as usual.

Eric Gadzinski lives in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, and is currently "between jobs." His poems have appeared in a variety of publications, and received two nominations for the Pushcart Prize in 2007.