Plane for Moving Back to New York

Emily Gordon

I arrive in a fog. Is it heaven or space?

No bridges or skyscrapers,

just blurred brown shapes,

the air unnaturally balmy.

I started out on a plane

with my mother, tiny, admired,

even my vomit adorable.

I’m carrying my own small cargo,

cooed over, assisted,

but nearing the end of her little self,

as my mother may be nearing her end,

and the trip through the feathery trees is unfamiliar,

the driver gruff, no sign to greet me,

no one to shoulder my bags,

but a ground floor still awaits me,

strange, but with a kind pellet stove,

radiant floors, music above,

somewhere for us to make our way

through white sky, storm-wounded woods,

weeping willows, downy tufts of grass,

to this chapter’s slow or brutal end.