The Man in the Dead Machine
By Donald Hall
High on a slope in New Guinea
the Grumman Hellcat
lodges among bright vines
as thick as arms. In nineteen forty-three,
the clenched hand of a pilot
glided it here
where no one has ever been.
In the cockpit the helmeted
skeleton sits
upright, held
by dry sinews at neck
and shoulder, and by webbing
that straps the pelvic cross
to the cracked
leather of the seat, and the breastbone
to the canvas cover
of the parachute.
Or say that the shrapnel
missed me, I flew
back to the carrier, and every morning
take the train, my pale
hands on a black case, and sit
upright, held
by the firm webbing.
Copyright Credit: Donald Hall, "The Man in the Dead Machine" from White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006. Copyright © 2006 by Donald Hall. Reprinted by permission of Donald Hall.
Source: White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)