The Sunday Poem: Mid-Flight Checks by Claudine Toutoungi

We are experiencing a fall

in cabin pressure inside your brain

Something will drop down 

and you shouldn’t be afraid to inhale 

Oxygen, flowing synthetically 

will fill your lungs

Remote action symbols 

will approximate hard and fast predictions

Slight atonal shifts? Yes. But the thin metal 

whine is merely structural

BRACE! BRACE! should not shock

you but may. Never trill or yelp 

like a bird in a cabaret 

of birds. Apply the mask squarely 

to yours and no face else’s. Fold your-

self up like a table, if necessary

Claudine Toutoungi is a poet and playwright. Her latest collection, Emotional Support Horse, is published by Carcanet Press

Illustration by Chris Riddell