Alison Brackenbury

Flight EZ426

In Edinburgh Airport’s warm afternoon
I watched a dark girl in the terminal
With eyes of shallow waters, blue and green,
Who led her small son round on a loose rein
In a calm quiet, as women walk with men.
They lean behind me now in the last lull

Before the flight; and in the throbbing plane
She speaks to his low crooning, “Look, a man.”
With mustard-yellow coat, with a bleached mane,
A boy with crooked smile, a radio,
Sweeps arms with joy to tell the crew to go,
She lilts, to soothe her fright, her son, “Look, man!”

The boy sprints to a truck door, leaps inside.
Will he spring up, so young and free, again,
Shift ended, sun in eyes, his friend beside?
“We’ll see Dada,” she soothes. Wing tilts. Her tone
Sings to the plane’s lift, “I am not alone,”
To son, to the truck cab, and on the flight,
The pilot, squinting forward into light.