Sample Poems by Lori Jakiela

Working the Red Eye, Pittsburgh to Vegas

The man in the emergency exit row
has been drinking
from his own bottle of duty-free vodka
and because he was quiet about it,
kept his clothes on , and didn't hit
his call button even once
no one notices until we land in Vegas
and he refuses to get off the plane.
He's sure we haven't gone anywhere.
"You people think I'm a sucker," he says.
"I'm no sucker. I paid good money for this."
He boarded in Pittsburgh, my home country.
In Pittsburgh, we have two dreams:
to go to Vegas to live
and to go to Florida to die.
The gate agents call the police.
The pilots are pissed.
The A-line flight attendant
with the fake French name
twirls a pair of plastic handcuffs and says,
"These make me so-o-o hot."

My father, who stopped drinking years ago
but never found his way, loved Vegas.
He'd carry a sweatsock full of good-luck
nickels through security
and get stopped every time.
He died at home in a rented hospital bed
in Pittsburgh, not Florida.
"Sir," I say to the drunk on the plane
who squeezes his eyes shut
so he doesn't have to see me.
"Please put your shoes on."

"Fuck you," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."

My Father the Machinist Said

You're smart. Use the brains
God gave you.
I could wipe my ass
with what you know about love.
Don't let the users
use you. Wise up.
See the world. Go places.
Watch out for cockroaches.
Use your brains, princess.
Buckle down. Fly right.
Don't be like me.
Don't work with your hands.

Looking for Life in the Classifieds

The ad read "Like to Travel?
Want to Move to New York?"
Then, in small print,
"Now hiring flight attendants."

I'd flown twice, threw up both times.
I took a train from Pittsburgh to Florida,
coach not sleeper, 27 upright hours
because I was afraid to fly, couldn't swim,
had dreams about crashing in the ocean.
I knew what sharks did to survivors
in the disaster flicks I loved growing up -
the sweet but sassy heroine looks fine,
bobbing in her life preserver, and then
our hero tips her over to find
her shapely legs chomped off
like two sticks of beef jerky.
Still, I was turning 30, desperate,
a connoisseur of beer and want ads.
I had a masters degree, I had experience --
part-time college instructor, reporter,
public relations spinner,
I'd waited tables on and off since I was 12.
I wanted to live in New York.
How hard could working a plane be
compared to a writing workshop,
compared to Bingo Night,
the Trafford Polish Hall, 1982
where a capacity crowd
of 185 senior citizens blew smoke,
grumbled about the price of fried cheese balls,
left nickel tips and got in fist fights
over whether or not the games were fixed.
Mrs. Cupka was sure B12 had been pumped
full of lead because it lolled around
on the bottom of the pile.
Mrs. Dzurka said Mrs. Cupka was full of drecka
and that B12 came up twice a week,
but Mrs. Cupka was too senile to remember.
If I could pry Mrs. Dzurka's
good-luck kewpie doll
out of Mrs. Cupka's clenched fist
all those years ago,
I could handle almost anything
the average airplane passenger
or shark could dish.
You must revise your life, William Stafford said.
I tore out the ad.
I took the job.

A Flight Attendant's Lament

They told me I was going to Paris
so why am I stuck in Atlanta, Georgia
in a tiki hut on Bobbie Brown Boulevard
eating crab legs out of a dented bucket?
A guy in a blue Hawaiian shirt
loads the jukebox with a $20
and plays Jimmy Buffett's "Why Don't We
Get Drunk and Screw"
over and over and over
then sends me a beer with a note that says, "Smile."

I raise the beer to say thanks, hold a crab leg up
in a salute, then ask the bartender for a pen.
Somewhere there's an ocean.
Somewhere beauty's waiting.
On the note, I write back,
"I am smiling.
Sincerely,
Mona Lisa."

For the Cab Driver Who Saved My Job and Quite Possibly My Life

I reported to the wrong airport.
It was 5 p.m. in my beloved New York.
The Grand Central looked
like a packed subway car.
The Van Wyck, a clogged hive.
I told this to the scheduler on the phone.
His name was Sheldon.
He was in Atlanta.
"Hotlanta!" Sheldon would say. Woot Woot.
Sheldon hated New York, New Yorkers.
Sheldon talked like he was chomping cotton.
If I didn't make it from LGA to JFK in an hour, Sheldon would make sure I lost my job.
I'd never been fired from a job
and most days I hated this one, but still.
"Home," I said to the cab driver
when he asked where I needed to go,
and of course by then I was crying.
"What's wrong with you?" he said,
his eyes in his rear-view mirror.
"What's your trouble?"

I told him everything.
"It's o.k.," I said finally, and wiped my face
on my flammable blue polyester sleeve.
"I can go back to Pittsburgh. I can type.
I can wait tables. I can get another job."

The cabbie's eyes were two coin slots,
his hands, two anchors on the wheel.
"This person who says you have to
get to Kennedy," he said.
"Doesn't he know this is New York?"

"He's in Atlanta," I said. "He doesn't care."

My cab driver was from Zimbabwe.
His English was edged, precise, better than mine.
Maybe he remembered what is was like
to be helpless and far from home.
Maybe it was something simple
and rare -- kindness.
He said, "Atlanta. Ha!"
He said, "I will get you to Kennedy."
It was a vow, an oath. "As God
will witness," he said. "I will get you there,"
a line he'd learned from the movies.
And then he threw the car in drive and drove.
He drove over the berm, off the side of the road.
He kept at the horn.
He stitched the cab in and out,
rolled down his window
and waved his arm like a propeller.
When we hit the Van Wyck,
he drove embankments
and the car tipped sideways.
I tightened my seatbelt.
At Kennedy, he leaped out and tossed my bags
from the trunk to the curb in one fluid move
like a shot-putter.
"Run!" he said. "You go! Fuck them!"

I ran. I made it through security
and onto the plane just in time.
The A-line flight attendant rolled his eyes
and said, "Nice of you to join us, princess."
The first-class passengers looked up, scowled,
and checked their watches.
Within minutes, I was strapped in my jumpseat
and the plane was lifting up,
all impossible grace and light,
a miracle, really.

Training Film #2: Spot the Terrorist!

We're playing "Spot The Terrorist!"
There are prizes involved --
Fuzzy socks and earplugs,
travel-sized bottles
of hand lotion and shampoo.
The film is a montage, a vacation slide show.
All the must- see sights are people.
Face after face flashes the screen.
Most seem vacant. A few ham it up -
a scowl, a squint.
Our flight instructor
hits Rewind,
then Play, says,
"These are actual
passengers, not actors."
Our flight instructor says,
"Stay alert. Look for
little things,"
Rewind.
Play. She says,
"Could you
spot the danger?"

Our flight instructor blinks a lot,
a light that's about to go out.
She's southern, so the word spot
has two syllables,
which isn't dangerous
but still.
Rewind.
Play.
The faces on the screen are numbered.
Number 2 looks like a grandmother,
paisley and curls.
Number 4, a college student
with his backpack shell.
9 is brown-skinned, dashiki'd.
10 is pale, translucent as an anemone.
"When y'all see something
suspicious,
write down the number,"
our flight instructor says.
"The one who gets the most
terrorists, wins."

What does danger look like?
Rewind.
What can you tell from just a face?
Play.
This is before September 11th,
so I think it's impossible, a joke
and write down every number.
When I hand over my list, our flight instructor
claps her hands and squeals. She says,
"Of course
they're all terrorists!
Way to trust your instincts!"


Then she hands me a $50 coupon
to use at the In-Flight Uniform Shop
where I'll buy shoes, regulation black flats,
rubber-soled, sensible,
the kind of shoes made to run.