Photography © Shannon O’Connor
The Problem with Air Traffic Control
The Rump was on TV talking about the plane crash in D.C.
He said it was caused by DEI hires
that dwarves and people with psychiatric problems worked there.
A dwarf, interviewed on the news, said
people like him shouldn’t be considered disabled, there’s still
prejudice.
I think of what the famed actor Peter Dinklage would say to Rump,
which is nothing, he would just
hit him over the head with a cudgel, spit on him, and walk away.
What about people with psychiatric illnesses?
Like Picasso? He was brilliant and unstable,
He could do things other artists could only dream.
Does Rump think he wouldn’t be able to do
air traffic control?
Ernest Hemingway?
He lived in a time with no psych meds,
but he medicated himself.
When he was sober, or not, he could run with the bulls,
fight in wars,
would he be able to direct planes, even though he
was considered insane?
Robin Williams, the most talented actor
of his generation, as bipolar as anyone could be,
was capable of anything.
He could have done air traffic control,
if that was his career,
He would have sent the planes laughing through the sky.
Virginia Woolf drinks tea in the control tower
with her friends Sylvia Plath and Janet Frame
scoffing at the fools who believe people like them
can’t do things like air traffic control,
brain surgery,
or culinary arts.
Virginia Woolf, troubled and disturbed,
comes down from the tower, and punches
Rump in the face.
Sylvia laughs, because she knows they’re all
smarter than him, and someday her people
will rise, forcing everyone to listen
that we’re more capable of doing what
the Rumps of the world believe, we think differently:
We’re better and smarter and fuller and wiser and more circular,
Eventually, we will win over the unintelligent people,
who can’t strike a match
or start a revolution,
or even imagine a different type of world,
where people get along
and everyone is free to be
as weird as they are
or as brilliant
as a moonbeam
caught in a glass
shining hopefully
inspiring us
to keep going on.
Shannon O’Connor has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has been published previously in Oddball Magazine, as well as Wordgathering, 365 Tomorrows, and others. She is the chair of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union. She is a fiction writer, but once in a while she writes poetry, when she feels inspired, or angry enough.