Many take medical rides through the air

in this sky that has never been bombed            in this virginal facelifted sky
with occasional natural migraines or                 tantrums of national pride
                                                                      warranting oohs and ahs, dog trauma,
unconvinced terrified cries from the children who haven't yet

[she could not get me to truly believe that the oncoming river of cars
would stop while we crossed the wide boulevard, red light or not]

Did your baby drop yet, I sometimes ask a pregnant person,
as if a fetus hunkering down signaled the new year
across a slow gradation of the time zones via satellite,
                                                                                     and did your water break?

The late-night choppers to the famous hospital unzip the fly,
but there's still so much more to strip down to, and that's what
the surgeons are for. Right now, there is one on the walkway
between two impacted steel molars; he is reading his smartphone
with two windows open: one to the breaking news about the latest war,
and one to a picture of a white pop starlet slapping a black woman's buttocks.

[Even if this surgeon isn't on the walkway at this moment,
the walkway's like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise,
and none of its windows have ever been opened.]       Or would you rather be
                                                                                                      surprised?
                                                                                                      the third option
                                                                                                      in the question
                                                                                                      one might ask
                                                                                                      a bomb-to-be.