Poem

Dulles Access Road

Click here to listen to Stephanie Burt read this poem.

Seen from the paid-for taxicab on the way to the paid-for flight,

this is our preparation for
the world, which insists
on employment, which insists,

if you want adults
to take you seriously,
that you have to make somebody

pay. We are untrained
to manage even the pace
at which we live. Slow down at the last red light,

behind it, as they do
almost every day at this hour,
impregnable metal containers dissolve in the sky.