Beyond the amplitude of sky filling the pulverized windows,
a plane plummets toward us. We evaporate into a cloud
uttering cries that rise with an explosive shift
of wind, like dust. Above these desks,
pendant lightning pivots like the cacophonous cracking
of a whip. The roof hurries to hush walls closing
down upon us; see the swelling floor tiles
swallow the room; we are weightless,
falling into each other, stuck like bandages
holding wounded steel and flame.
Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. He edited the award-winning anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry. His writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, The Believer, and Harvard Review. His new collection of poetry, Brutal Companion, which includes "On Progress," won the Barrow Street Editors Prize.
