There’s a gap in the trees. Long splinters
of red gum point to heaven. Below, a wing
torn off from the charred skeleton
of pipes that lie in the tangle of rainforest,
buckled propeller blades are screamed back
and the dead still slumped in their seats. I hold a vine,
and stand trying to keep the thing from me. Two days
searching, and now, unprepared to find it,
through the unclean air, their voices
call again, shake me out of my horror and cold skin.