“Airport Hotel”

The mother leans against the hotel window,
eleventh floor, watching the jets
float like shark along runways of blue lights.

The sky is black as charred wood,
the moon stuck in it like an axe. The mother
hangs over the airport, moaning in disbelief.

She tries not to think, watches TV:
men leap out of trains, their backs on fire.
She turns to make sure the children are asleep 

and sees their eyes shut, their mouths 
open, their arms flung out just like
the bodies on the screen. She is taking them up
where she cannot save them.

She leans against the sealed window,
planes the size of silverware 
beneath her hand. She stands over them now 
like a cook at the cutlery, a murderer
selecting a weapon.

— Sharon Olds, from Satan Says (1980)