Dolores Hayden
Daredevil
William Hickman Pickens, promoter
Demon of the Ground vs. Daredevil of the Air
plays at racetracks in thirty cities:
Oldfield drives a fast car,
Linc Beachey hovers just above him.
Bookmakers will take your bet,
and they’ll lay odds
on the day any pilot
heads for hell on a shutter.
I get a cut of everything,
and men will bet on anything,
they smell hot castor oil
when mechanics prime the motors,
they salivate
for the stink
of a scorched fuselage.
Linc sees me park an ambulance
next to the grandstand
and burn wreckage on the spot.
Three times he decides to retire—
my lollapalooza earner
wants to play with his money,
beat the market.
Three times I whisper, hell,
man, daredevils never quit.
He mounts the cockpit wearing
a pin-striped suit, a necktie
with a diamond stickpin,
and a peaked cap he turns
backwards to improve the
airflow, signal the start.
Postures
Lincoln Beachey
Wilbur designed a hip cradle. Prone,
he warped the wings of his glider,
moving his hips, he made love to the air.
I’d rather make love to a woman.
Glenn sold motors. Prone on a motorcycle
at one hundred thirty-six miles an hour,
he claimed it satisfied his speed-craving.
I’d rather make love to a woman.
These days Wilbur and Orville weave nests
of wood and cloth and wire
where the bird man sits next to the engine,
Glenn leaves the bird man way out in front, exposed.
Wilbur, Orville, and Glenn can’t agree
on anything except—
I am the greatest bird anyone has ever seen.
I wear the plane.
Tell me roll,
tell me dive,
tell me breathe,
tell me high,
I steer with hands or knees,
I am first, fastest, highest, farthest.
I’m ordering a new machine
with an aluminum skin,
B E A C H E Y across the wings.
Glenn doubts the strength of the alloy,
he’s been saying things like that for years.
Loop After Loop
William Hickman Pickens
San Francisco is black with coats and hats,
fairgoers crowd grandstands, lean
from open windows, perch
on roofs, tip their faces up. Linc
taxis out from the Palace of Machinery,
takes off to applause, lands
to ovations, performs
the Twentieth Century for them.
Jumping rope, children chant,
Lincoln Beachey lives for his dream,
heading up to heaven
in a flying machine…
Today he’s getting a medal—but
the medal is not here yet,
could he go up one more time?
He heads out above the bay, spins
through loop after loop, circles
up, loops again, dives.
Halfway down
his right wing
shears off.
And—
his left.
Faster than hell can scorch a feather,
I lose my star.
