Dennis Mahagin

Don’t Want

 

Air Sickness

is a walk in the park

compared to 

withdrawal, they say

we are free to 

move, to fall

about the cabin. 

I have a nightmare

I meet her boyfriend

while standing in line at the Walgreens pharmacy; 

he lets me know in low, burning tones

the way she likes it,

the way it was going

to stay, he said, lightly gripping

my elbow like a prison guard

leading a skel

back to his cell. “she makes me

crazy enough to bust a motherfucker,” 

he says, “and you don’t want that, you don’t 

want it here, right?” I shake my head, then

nod, as my turn comes 

at the Walgreens

window; 

the pharmacist slides my package 

across the counter. We hit it, that 

turbulence, more and more 

turbulence, yet the woman

in question stays right there, 

in my mind, 

a kind of living grief in bas relief; 

then I’m back 

on the plane. We continue 

our climb. 

I whisper 

to the flight attendant 

struggling in the aisle,

as she’s swaying there, 

with a tight-lipped

smile and her tray of drinks. I say, 

listen, I say, listen I don’t want 

this anymore.

Dennis Mahagin is a writer and musician from Montana.

His poems have appeared in magazines such as Exquisite 

Corpse, Juked, Thrush Journal, DecomP, Oddball, Unlikely 

Stories, 3 A,M., Stirring: A Literary Collection, and  previously at Live Nude Poems. Dennis has published two poetry books:Grand Mal, from Rebel Satori Press, and Longshot & Ghazal, from Mojave River Press. Dennis is the poetry editor for Frigg Magazine. He runs a music store in a town called Deer Lodge.