It is said a plane has no inside,
no depth — just folds and intensities,
but here I am deep inside this Spirit
Airbus, folded into the bosoms
and paunches of the lumpenproletariat,
the Prince writes glumly in his notebook,
even my desire for intensity is weak,
I guess I’ll have some thoughts on the novel,
how it revalues empty time as luxurious,
not full, even as the value of luxury drops—
kill me. The irrigated desert scrolls past
like a mechanical Mondrian, thins to cut-rate Braque,
and it’s true the sunset is very beautiful
when brief, so tawdry when drawn on—