Beth A. Fleisher

Hour 15

 

Prompt 15:  There are very few poems about air travel, even though there are a lot about driving, train travel, and subway commuting. Your prompt this hour is to write a poem about a plane trip.

 

Where’s Our Plane?

 

I walked out of the airport gate with Mary,

Stepped onto pavement, no ramp,

no boarding tunnel

To take us to the plane.

 

Straight ahead the smallest red-and-white plane

I had ever seen perched on the sidewalk,

tiny door open, rickety-looking metal stairs

the only way in. Or out.

 

Thankful not to have to get on that thing,

I asked Mary,

Where’s our plane?

A frustrated look, and she gently shoved me forward.

 

Oh.My.God! White-knuckled flyer on a big bird,

this toy plane scared me even worse.

Smaller than a school bus, one aisle, 40 seats.

Really? We’re flying in this?

 

I gingerly sat down in the aisle seat on the left,

Mary sat across the aisle, turned on her phone.

Luckily, my seat partner was friendly. But then

the plane started to back up, swing around, and taxi.

 

I braced myself for crashing on the runway

as we picked up speed for lift off —

but she rose cleanly, like a little bird soaring,

no big drama shudder like a big plane’s lift off.

 

Breathing again, I released my death grip

on the seat in front of me, and tried for cool

and nonchalant. It’s okay, my seat mate sympathized,

my little sister gets scared, too. But she’s only six.