Barnstorming Utah
She says
she can remember
when they first passed
the Utah Clean Air Act.
How the pilot would come on the P.A.
and announce that no one
could smoke while over
Utah's airspace, like
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
might sing you out of the sky.
Though on the ground
alcohol was completely
illegal at the time,
she liked thinking
that the vapors of
the Old Fashioneds
Manhattans
and Tequila Sunrises
were seeding the rain clouds
dusting the Mormon's halos.
That's why they'd get drunk
off playing charades
and eating lime Jell-o salads.
Said that on a rainy day
taking off from Salt Lake City
she'd smell the corn nuts
and peach taffy
that the tourists had bought
look out the window and dream
that the salt flat
was just one big bowl
of fruit fluff on a salty lake
of
Mountain Dew.
The 2River View, 3_3 (Spring 1999)