You’ve got a little tan.
I tugged at her backpack,
Set it on the curb.
Another jet leaves.
She didn’t hear
Until I repeated
A bit louder this time,
“I said it looks like
You got a little tan”.
She rubbed her hands up
And down her smooth arms.
“I guess I did” she nods.
The door slides open.
“I can take it from here.
You don’t have to wait.
And the no crying rule
Is now in effect.”
We always did that.
Pretended it was
No big deal, her leaving.
Like we did this all
The time. She smiled again
Across the car roof,
Glanced at her ticket,
Headed for the lobby.
The door swooshes shut.
Later, she will call
To tell me she’s okay.
Home, safe and sound,
And that she cried at the gate
Not even getting
As far as the plane.
I tell her I bawled too
coming back from the airport.
Above my house, this new address,
The room she never got to sleep in,
the jets come and go.
I live under these planes now.
They streak like stars
Roaring over my garden walls.
They never touch down,
But I wave sometimes
At the silver wings,
Think maybe she’s flying
Up there somehow
On her way back
To sound, to safe, to home.
Another jet leaves.
“Honey, I miss you," I whisper.
"I promise to pretend
not to cry.”
(Copyright Text Wren Walker; Photo Rob Landry 2010)
