Poem: ‘Uttar Pradesh’
August Kleinzahler, 9 March 1995
You were dozing over Uttar Pradesh well after the shadows of Annapurna swept across the big plane’s starboard wing,
dreaming a peevish little dream of Stinky Phil, your playground tormentor from fifty years before, his red earmuffs
and curious cigar voice vivid as the tapioca you used to gag on at the end of Thursday lunch, when the captain’s serene, patriarchal voice
suggested...