Jeffrey Alfier: Three Poems

Naiad on a Crowded Airliner | Communications Pallets in the Rain, Ramstein Air Base | Tactical Descent at Night

Naiad on a Crowded Airliner

Looking like a child of a river god,
a small form curls in the seat beside you,
stirring from the sleep she loves like amnion.
As you think how lips should brush the sweet sculpture
of her mouth, she awakens with the eyes
Greeks ached to name islands for. But perhaps
she would count all men fake—you a fool.
So you stay as mute as a dead language,
still mirrored in the roan depths of her eyes
where souls like yours have been lured to wastelands.

Communications Pallets in the Rain, Ramstein Air Base

Transmitters and receivers await their sparks
that warm to life with exigent voices.
Mounted on quickly built crossbeam pallets
meager as the raft of the Medusa,
they are secured by webs of nylon straps,
and preserved under a waterproof tarp
to discourage rain's slow dissolution.

Sitting below skies of far-eyed kindred:
a flight of crows, and the ascendant pine—
earth's pandemic gods wading in the breeze.

Tactical Descent at Night

Stars rise in twilight's fall,
wings release altitude
and landing lights fall dark.
The engines are throttled
to just above a stall
to cool the signature
of visible shadows.
Reflecting the gauges,
the pilot thinks his eyes
are but sparks in a cave.
Faith could be rumor now.
Sleep, the perfect hunter.

Poet's Biography:

Jeffrey Alfier recently completed 25-years of service as an Air Force officer and enlisted man. He is now a technical writer dividing his time between Tucson, Arizona, and Bechhofen, Germany. He is a member of the United Poets Coalition. Publication credits include Border Senses, Columbia Review, Conspire, Laughing Dog, Poetry Greece, Stolen Island Review, The Last Man Out, The Richmond Review, Trinity College Journal, and forthcoming in the Valparaiso Poetry Review. This is his second appearance in three candles.