POEMS
JOHN UPDIKE
Icarus
O .K., you are sitting in an airplane and
the person in the seat next to you is a sweaty, swarthy gentleman
of Middle Eastern origin
whose carry-on luggage consists of a bulky black briefcase he
stashes,
in compliance with airline regulations,
underneath the seat ahead .
He keeps looking at his watch and closing his eyes in prayer,
resting his profusely dank forehead against the seatback ahead of
him,
just above the black briefcase,
which if you listen through the droning of the engines seems to
be ticking, ticking
softly, softer than your heartbeat in your ears.
Who wants to have all their careful packing-the travellers'
checks, the folded underwear-
end as floating sea-wrack five miles below,
drifting in a rainbow scum of jet fuel,
and their docile hopes of a plastic-wrapped meal
dashed in a concussion whiter than the sun?
I say to my companion, "Smooth flight so far."
"So far."
"That's quite a briefcase you've got there."
He shrugs and says,
"It
contains my life's work."
"And what is it, exactly, that you do?"
"You could say I am a lobbyist."
He does not want to talk.
He wants to keep praying.
His hands, with their silky beige backs and their nails cut close
like a technician's,
tremble and jump in handling the plastic glass of Sprite when it
comes with its exploding bubbles.
