I-95 to Baltimore

We must have been

The very image of

White trash that night

Battered truck

Holes in the knees of

My tattered jeans

I was barefoot

We had an upright piano

A toilet

construction tools

And two hound dogs

In the bed

My feet hung

out the window

to catch the breeze

We were headed

all the way to Vermont

in one long shot

That trip has become family

Legend: the first time we

traveled together

I-95 North was, then,

a wasteland between

DC and Baltimore

where drug smugglers baited

state troopers

in nondescript cars

Which might be why

a thousand cars

had passed the Toyota

sedan on the side of the road

But it was probably

because they were

Six young Black men.

The man who became

my husband pulled over

white knight to the rescue

without thought

to race or peril

I fell a little more in love

watching him cheerfully

offer a lift to the nearest

filling station.

Their astonishment speared

my heart as I squeezed over

to fit four into a

three-person bench seat.

Two for safety:

we could have been

crackers on a joyride

in rural America

We managed.

Me shifting the gear knob

between my knees

while he steered.

They prattled on

about their schooling

and their jobs

as if we needed proof

that they were harmless.

We left them under

sizzling fluorescents

two miles down the road

with a gas can and an

assurance that they’d

be okay from there.

It was just

a kindness between strangers.

The moment sticks in my mind

because I’m still waiting

For that to be true.

Spirit of Words

Poetry is

The essence

Of language

Oceans of words

Distilled

To a few lines

Not one word

Out of place

Not one extra

Grapes must pass

Beyond juice

Beyond wine

To become brandy

So must writing

Be tended

pruned

aged

To achieve poetry

Write a novel

   Cut it to novella

      Slice it to short story

         Pare it to flash fiction

Only then

Can you remove

The chaff

And call it

A poem

Fulgurite

Grit-clad glass tunnels

delicate hollows branch

downward through sand

jagged shards that

capture the sky

upside-down

lightning reflected

in white green black brown glass

just as love

leaves its mark

on our hearts

A fulgurite and a human heart

Theme Park

I'm at the amusement park on the 4th of July. We came late, The Boy and I, because we are staying for the fireworks. He can handle any ride; I am more selective. My time waiting on benches affords me an unusual opportunity for people watching.

The Boy sits alone in a car on a spinny ride. I once delighted in them as well, but my inner ear has aged to the point of extreme nausea. I see him chattering to himself before the ride begins. A giant grin builds across his face, soaring and whirling above me. This. This is why we came here. He sprints toward me afterward, shouting his joy before racing off to the roller coaster. I overcome my fear and ride with him, eating my stomach as it rises to my throat, breathing deeply afterward. We ride two, then three, and finally I point him to another spinner so I can sit and calm myself. My eyes--and my ears--turn again to the people around me.

The air swirls with the scents of chlorine from the water park, beer, and sunscreen. I hear surges of screams from the thrill rides, mostly drowned by top-forty hits on the piped music. The wave pool surprised me with twenty minutes of lively classical tunes. I may have been the only person to appreciate it; the cheerful gasps and splutters of swimmers were more noticeable.

I remember that it's the 4th of July. Once, when I worked in a grocery store, a woman asked me "I know it's Independence Day, but independence from what?" I like to think I answered kindly, explaining simply the roots of the celebration, but I was young and cruel then. I don't remember what I said. Now I see that same cruelness ripple across the internet, slicing and mocking those who think differently and I strive to set a better example. I often fail.

Right now, though, my heart swells with a universal love of my country and my compatriots. My fellow Americans. The phrase has more meaning here in a small typical theme park. Mixed with the scents of popcorn and corn dogs is the sound of Spanish and African languages I don't recognize. I catch the cadence of Arabic, Korean, Chinese. I watch and see an idealized cross-section of the United States. Women in burkas shepherd their children past white teeny boppers in minute bikinis. Latinos chat with the black families waiting next to them in line. A mulleted white man in a sleeveless tank top, a flag and cross tattooed on his bicep, ushers a lesbian couple and their children into a line ahead of him. It's a tiny courtesy, but the sweetness of it causes a hitch in my breathing.

We are here, all of us, together. There's a harmony of purpose and pleasure. We share the exasperation of parents with over tired children. Adults smile knowingly at the charged flirting of teenagers, who glance sidelong at each other from the safety of their packs. We cross our usual boundaries to comment on the weather, the day, querying each other on where best to see the show. Here, today, we are all the same. We are enjoying a holiday with our families and friends. We all holler with delight at the fireworks shattering the sky above. Whatever our differences, right now, here, we all are Americans.

Skyward

Dust devils lifted debris and spattered it against the white curvature of the old airplane, scouring fresh glistening scars deep into the aluminum skin. The plane trembled in the gust, remembering trundling across sun-melted tarmac at IQT, wheels clinging to stickyhot macadam, air painfully thin, racing faster and faster, grasping for lift. It remembered sliding sideways toward DCA, buffeted by swirling winds over the Potomac, racing caustic gulls to the runway. It remembered the triumph of thrust overcoming gravity, climbing skyward into deepening cerulean, clouds streaming from the tips of its wings in delicate evaporating vortices.

Elsewhere in the boneyard, carcasses of stripped aircraft shuddered, open fuselages groaning and warping. Moans were pulled from desecrated machines as wind whipped through torn skin, giving voice to the remainders.

The plane remembered flying over a kite festival not far from PEK, sneering at the pitiful “aircraft” bobbing without power in the slightest breeze, tethered to people even further below. With thundering screaming engines it had conquered the sky, chasing the sun and watching the Earth fall away in an endless shining curve.

Thunderheads gathered, sweeping air before them in bursts that swirled into a gale that beat against the old craft. It remembered the kites, dancing on the slightest breeze. It remembered lift. It remembered flying. It quivered, balancing delicately on time-softened tires, and then, ever so slightly, the nose rose. The wind gusted again, harder, pushing. Lifting. The nose rose again, higher. The plane tilted upward, wind caressing its wings, sliding past the scars of amputated engines, flowing over ailerons and stabilizers, elevators and flaps and gifting them with renewed purpose. The plane lifted, reaching. It twisted into the storm, holding steady, waiting, waiting for a cyclone to tear it free again from gravity.

Days later the plane sat, still balanced on rear wheels and tail, nose pointed skyward. It waited. It remembered.

prompted by this video: skyward