Process of Elimination

Choice by extinction sounded ominous

to Yanks like us — we all remembered the war.

But that was just Herr Schreiff’s personal English.

We were on the same side now, building the thing,

the thing,

the VTOL fighter.

What’s today? There must be

some big dates coming up, historic dates.

He’d say, Cold hands frog heart, and it became a gag

among the engineers: Soft hands wombat heart,

Sweaty hands lawnmower heart.

The docs in this place

want to put in a pacemaker; I said no,

I’m not in this for the long run.

On his birthday Schreiff brought in three bottles of schnapps

and we sat around half pickled trying to do the

do the

debug the navigation. What a fright?

Patty —     Debbie —    Susan called, wanted to know

could she bring me anything. I told her, My old brain.

I used to be smart, you know?

I’m assuming someone

is in charge of the dates, the historic dates.

Schreiff had worked for Heinkel during the war,

on those last-ditch plywood jet fighters

that kept disintegrating in midair

and killing their precious test pilots.

Ah Christ, look at this mess! Where’s the thing,

the thing

to call the nurse? Someone needs to deal

with those important dates, it’s all

so

disorganized.