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Sport 36: Winter 2008

Sweet Talk

Sweet Talk

When the bumps get bigger
and the plane strikes more doubts,
the attendants don't smile and say

the Arctic below us
is the safest of oceans to land on;

that runways are stamped all over the ice
and torches outline them
when it gets dark;

that if forced onto a floe
the crew knows to use the wind and the rudder
to steer the floe home;

that in the worst outcome,
against all that white,
the wreckage will be easy to spot.

Trust is the best flotation device,
the attendants signal
six hours since Gatwick

when they pass round the basket
brimming with glacier mints.

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