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Saturday, June 22, 2019

STRAIT OF HORMUZ,
AN OPERA IN ONE ACT

by Sharon Olson


Photo credit: (AP/Shutterstock/Salon)


Everyone assumed it was unmanned,
everyone it appears but the Drone family,
Papa Drone who had proclaimed
he could fly the damned thing blind,
Baby Drone, excited about his first flight
but not tall enough to see out the windows,
and Mrs. Drone, who suddenly lamented
her husband’s lack of hands-on experience,
doubting whether he could really turn
the craft around on a dime, such that
when the familia found themselves
engulfed, bobbing among flotsam,
she cried out even though no one
could hear, Won’t someone please 
bring me the head of Pompeo?


Sharon Olson is a retired librarian. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019. She currently lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where she is a member of the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative, and also of the Cool Women Poets critique and performance group.