A shortage of air traffic controllers is hurting safety
NPR, November 9, 2023

Airline traffic controllers soused, stoned
and staggering after numerous fifteen-hour shifts
a pilot shortage of over twelve thousand

mostly newbies flying in the cockpit
yelling yowie as the plane drops ten thousand feet
Han Solo wannabees

training programs trimmed, so pilots can fly
a jumbo jet with only a few hours of instruction
mostly on the ground

and they expect us to get on a plane, really?
to wait fifty hours for a flight that has been
cancelled four times, now flying first to Fort Worth

then to Seattle before finally heading to Boston
stranded with stale pizza and ominous warnings
that your luggage is subject to search, inspection,

ravage and ruination, only an iPhone
with dismal news of yet another dictator
in yet another country you’ve never heard of

and who wants to stampede, shoving pointless people
aside so you don’t have to check your bags
which would surely be lost, battling for decades

with an insurance agent who speaks only Dahlik
to prove you had a pair of brand-new Gucci boots
and a Versace dress in your suitcase

then buckling into the dreaded middle seat
with the person on the right spilling over
and a screaming child on the left

her parents two rows back, happily blitzed
your emotional support ferret lying at your feet
(five hundred dollars extra) in an airline-compliant cage,

(also five hundred dollars), too far away
to be of any comfort to your frazzled nerves
so you guzzle Xanax like peanut M&Ms

slight turbulence signals the pilot
as the plane pivots and plunges and you know
the wing will fly off any minute

a propeller will sever your spine
and the plane will nose dive into Mount Rushmore
slicing Washington and Lincoln
leaving no survivors

I check the Amtrak schedule.