I saw a baseball cap
sporting the slogan
Make Orwell Fiction Again
and it brought a slight chuckle
but not a real laugh
because of course I recognized
terrible truth
The most dystopian feature
of new reality
is the constant background drone
of military planes
always present
in our pristine Valley sky
each always slowly banking
as though it forgot something
and had to turn around
to head back home
suspended
like it wants to get a real good
look at me
They’re circling the farm fields
even peeking through on days
heavy with thunder clouds
and they’re circling the city
of Springfield
bending in and out of view
from the tall windows
of my sixth-floor cubicle
many times each work day
banking above train tracks
and the YMCA
often in pairs
I swear one appears
from behind Mount Tom
every time I drive south
along the Connecticut River
and pass the Oxbow
always startling
seeming to brake and suspend
so still
observing until I turn right
and out of sight
You might say well
there’s an air reserve base nearby
and we’ve long had these planes
populating our skies
but I know
what it was like before
and how it is now
a marked difference
that crept up on us
like so many other losses
we didn’t see coming at first
I hate those fucking planes
and I trust my own eyes and ears
thank you very much
they are the last defense
of we fools
in what has never been
fiction