ENERGY EXPLORATION

by Kathy Conde

                                                                                                                                   

We took the pulse of earth

seismic soundings

for ebony lakes of hidden energy.

Our youth and our god

detected through explosions

demanded audacity.

Flying us to the field

the pilot, a war vet,

clutched the control stick

put us into a hammerhead stall

and said, "I turned

one of these choppers over once."

Impossible

but so was his grin

as the helicopter’s glass bubble

hesitated at the crest of the climb.

The silence of the killed

engine roared in our ears.

We tilted toward earth,

our toes white from pushing

brake pedals that weren't there.

Our fingers spread wide

in surrender. There was nothing

to hold on to. Even the air           

was falling with us.

* * * * *

"Energy Exploration" first appeared in Wazee Journal.

Kathy Conde won the Crab Orchard Review Jack Dyer Fiction Prize 2014. She has also won prizes and scholarships from Salem International Literary Awards, Munster’s Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition, and the Aspen Writers' Foundation. Her stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, CutThroat: A Journal of the Arts, Southword, Underground Voices, Word Riot, and others. She lives in Colorado with her husband and son. You can see more of her work at www.kathyconde.com.