Havoc 58

by Laura Joyce-Hubbard

small brown paper bags

A burn site on Sheep Mountain, 
500 feet from the peak.

small brown paper bags filled 
with

Nine souls on board. “Jackson, 
this is Delta 511. You guys seeing that?”

small brown paper bags filled 
with sleeping pills, tranquilizers,

A lone, brass trumpet echoes 
from back pews in the base chapel. 

Wearing my flight suit, 
I’m trained to remain dry-eyed. 

small brown paper bags filled 
with sleeping pills, tranquilizers, sedatives

My back throat burning. 
We hear them before we see them. 

Low overhead. Missing-man
formation honors the dead.

West Texas sky so bright it hurts. 

small brown paper bags filled 
with sleeping pills, tranquilizers, sedatives

the flight doc passes out

Squinting from the parade ground 
to see the space left empty.

Kim was the co-pilot. 

Wings on the lead aircraft dip 
customary salute to the dead. 

small brown paper bags filled 
with sleeping pills, tranquilizers, sedatives

the flight doc passes out
to surviving families 

Pilot’s wife, stumbling in grief, 
leans on someone nearby to stand.

Dressed black-drunk. 

How, I wonder, did she make 
her hair look so beautiful 

the morning of her husband’s

small brown paper bags filled
with sleeping pills, tranquilizers, sedatives 

the flight doc passes out 
to surviving families, calls it the prescription 

Paper bags damp from palms clenching them.

(Havoc 58.  August 17, 1996.)

****

Laura Joyce-Hubbard graduated from the U. S. Air Force Academy, piloted C-130s on active duty, and is a retired Major. She’s currently an MFA candidate at Northwestern University. Recent awards include a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship to attend the VCCA, nominations for the “2020 AWP Intro Journals Award” in nonfiction and poetry, Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards finalist (2019), and current finalist for the The Iowa Review Award in nonfiction.