sestina, baby part duex

sestinas are fun. i've played with them before on here.

i wrote this one on the plane from chi to nash.
the words were given to me by my man, who was sitting next to a man. a very. big. man.


Hell hell hell orange gummy big Sestina. Hell.

Her Sestina for the Newlywed made swell
An in-flight urge to write my own. Well,
I unfurl your contribution and see hell, hell, hell.
Now I am unsure. And the glare of orange
Sun from the wings makes my gum
Turn my stomach as I notice how big

The man we would pass these six words over is. Bisecting
The aisle with a note, I feel embarrassed. Hell,
Kind of annoying. But I am so bored. My
Eyes cross over the part of him that he
Can’t keep from spilling into 27B, a swell
Of bad choices, covering your arm rest. He is foreign

And too must feel as though in hell.
Snicker of a drunk. Reach of your arm. How big
He is in this airspace. If he sat by the window, orange
Light reflecting from fuselage would not pass. Well,
Maybe I’m exaggerating. But his hell
Is as our hell is as her hell: kind of gummy.

Present, congealed, of our own creation. Yup. Gummy.
Like the worms I bought in the airport shop. Not candy shells
But soft and changing as we spit, worry, and chew. He
and his excess blocking the sun, big
with heat and sweat. I wonder if like fires in hell
the light he sees in the glare of memory is orange.

Though I hate to do such shame to orange.
It’s a lovely hue. One of my
Heart. And anyway, I don’t believe in hell.
Couldn’t possibly. Have you been to Chicago? Hell.
A bed on Columbus Avenue with motor oil bisecting
The concrete palette of sleeping regret. That’s hell.

And in the smell of that street, my chest swells
With pangs of an eye twitch, a telling orange
Moment that that seems small in the big
Space of what we might create. If we don’t gum
It up by stoking the fire of what we know as hell.
The little pieces of them we carry. Real Hell.

Can you write about hell on an airplane? A shell
Of steel, not so big this far from Midway? Orange
Window-seat light at, well maybe, 30,000 feet. Oh Hell.