As if my child, I lead her to the plane
Where I must let her climb the stairs alone
And take her seat behind the doubled pane.
Within the waiting plane’s wide body, bone,
Like the blown shell of an egg, and blood, too thick
To pulse sometimes, constrain the dynamo I’ve known;
And what she might become beyond this quick,
Dark flight, I can’t imagine. Even now
The stairs fold up and in and I feel heartsick.
Each visit ends like this. In time we bow
To the necessity and claim profound
Returns in memory. I see her now,
Searching for berries I’d already found
Deep in the orchard’s summer shade
And gobbled up when she was not around.
The apples that she picked for pies were flayed,
Their skins coiled on the kitchen counter tiles,
And cut to fit the perfect crusts she made.
Hygenic fury scrubbed off all our smiles
And washed our cotton shorts and shifts to shreds.
Oh golden, garden summers, happy isles!
She drove and tucked us crisply into bed.
Now empty as the house, she cannot sleep
Who once cured every ill, held every head.
Bereft of every life her iron will lived to keep,
Reluctantly, she follows us out west.
No matter how I love her she’s distressed,
Who cannot give her back the life she gave,
That life become more haunting than the grave.
Where I must let her climb the stairs alone
And take her seat behind the doubled pane.
Within the waiting plane’s wide body, bone,
Like the blown shell of an egg, and blood, too thick
To pulse sometimes, constrain the dynamo I’ve known;
And what she might become beyond this quick,
Dark flight, I can’t imagine. Even now
The stairs fold up and in and I feel heartsick.
Each visit ends like this. In time we bow
To the necessity and claim profound
Returns in memory. I see her now,
Searching for berries I’d already found
Deep in the orchard’s summer shade
And gobbled up when she was not around.
The apples that she picked for pies were flayed,
Their skins coiled on the kitchen counter tiles,
And cut to fit the perfect crusts she made.
Hygenic fury scrubbed off all our smiles
And washed our cotton shorts and shifts to shreds.
Oh golden, garden summers, happy isles!
She drove and tucked us crisply into bed.
Now empty as the house, she cannot sleep
Who once cured every ill, held every head.
Bereft of every life her iron will lived to keep,
Reluctantly, she follows us out west.
No matter how I love her she’s distressed,
Who cannot give her back the life she gave,
That life become more haunting than the grave.
