JENNIFER H. DRACOS-TICE

An Offering to My Young Mother Locked in that Upstairs Room

 
Mom, I dream you
float out the upstairs window, forehead melting glass,
open arms slicing the casements —
 
Lift your collar bones
toward the sky —
 
and keep flying, loop
the slow loop, the layers
of your taffeta skirt
rattling behind you.
 
Soar higher — no nausea now,
only oceans of gingery light,
your locket’s golden chain waving,
the pages of your books ruffling.
 
Gravity softens your bones,
releases your joints
in sparks of glitter that trail, a kite’s long tail.
 
Let the rain smear your face —
water heaving above, air rushing below —
 
and may you sing ribbons as you fall — 

naked limbs stretching to brush crystal blooms,
palms surfing the rising wind’s waves,
your long shadow approaching the earth.

Omen

On May 11, 1996, ValuJet Flight 592 en route from Miami to Atlanta caught fire and plunged into the Everglades just minutes after take-off. No one survived.

 
They only found blue
indicating they only found
the tail. Was the smiling
chubby airline icon
waving just below that black
surface, a wink of light
in a marsh grass field?
 
Rescuers in waders, sank
in mud just two feet below.
 
There were no bodies. Tissue.
Poles prodded twenty-five feet
through silt, touched the only
large object, they guessed
fuselage. Jet fuel, toxins—
eaters of skin—
no one could go down
to see. My God, the day before
Mother’s Day, the day
 
he and I wed. It stormed
over Atlanta, where that flight
never arrived. Thunder broke,
but the priest kept going. We read
Langston Hughes’s Fulfillment, flash
of silvered coins at water’s
edge, splash of sparks, brief flare.
We touched hands, he winked. 

A pocket of water. A peaty tomb.

Jennifer H. Dracos-Tice teaches and lives in Atlanta with her wife and kids. Jen has published poetry in Crab Orchard Review, San Pedro River Review, Rogue Agent, Still: The Journal (2016 Judge’s Choice Award), and elsewhere. Jen can be reached at jendracostice@gmail.com.