It is unclear how many people died on the ground.

-Agence France Presse, July 01, 2015


We have heard of such news before:

a 51-year-old Hercules crashing after take-off,

from a Sumatra air force base into a massage parlor.

The plane had burst into a fireball in free fall

and crushed buildings in Medan, flames surging up

several stories, smoke sealing off fire escapes.

Out of the wreckage jutted the plane’s gnarled tail.

Fire trucks wailed, wailed for burning bodies.

Water gushed through the chaos of ambulance sirens.

On board the plane were military personnel,

their families, and (is it true?) civilians

who had paid a million rupiah each for a seat.

About a hundred forty perished, including a schoolboy.

Perhaps the boy’s teacher, mulling his absence,

would picture him in his uniform as she faced

the whiteboard, erasing the day’s lesson

while the school let the bell tear the air

at dismissal time; and his classmates,

saying his nickname over and over, would recount

to their parents what he had been like

and where his chair was in the classroom. Was it

by the window with a bird’s eye view of neighboring islands?

Before all these happened a tired client in the parlor

might have slumped on a bed that would soon catch fire,

his trousers hanging on a nail, his reversible belt

clinking its buckle against the wall from time to time

as fan blades overhead circled counter-clockwise with a drone.

Baby oil lavished on his back could have lulled the man to sleep

so soundly he did not hear the explosions or, stunned by blasts,

could have turned deaf, lost in thought: was there

anything that could be done or undone?

This was a future we already knew: we had seen it

like a blind masseur before this Hercules became a ball of fire,

who, having plotted the day ahead, would think

he could grasp the next hours in his head

as he fingered the hands of his watch.