Drop my 79 year old younger brother off
at the local airport, small and unstable
like an old stagecoach stop,
sending him to California to join
in the celebration of his son’s 50th.
Remember my first flight
on a prop plane to visit
our divorced mom in Rhode Island,
the tower telling the pilot
to bank around again because
he forgot to drop the landing gear.
My brother won’t have to deal with that
on this memory trip to the Golden state.
But I made it and he made it.
He had a stint spying on Vietnamese
in a War he came to hate,
as I, stateside, wore my boots down
protesting that atrocity.
He became a skilled carpenter,
building monuments of furniture
in homes all over the area.
I taught special ed children,
making them special despite the ed.
Now both with fifty-year marriages,
we fish in a local lake,
root for different teams,
bond in a local poetry club,
turning our long lives into verse.
Aches and pains travel with him,
heart, iron, energy, leg problems,
but he rolls on as we always have,
fighting through the age
that ain’t for sissies.
We realize we are close to sending
each other on a final flight
from which we won’t return,
joining the angels who will make sure
the landing gear is down,
accepting our forever wings.
Originally published by Bindweed Magazine