I will try to do my best in every way and give to you
that part of me
you know and seem to want.
Amelia Earhart to George Putnam, February 7th, 1931
Most of me is in the air, but parts of me
are unrelentingly earthbound, fibers held firm by an extra arm
of gravity until the thick steel slam
of closure.
There’s a man in the back row with a text: “I miss
you already.” His clumsy thumbs type and type and type
a response so it is ready to send when the grip
of the land keeps us even, not the nervous twitch
of thin orange needles, so she doesn’t have to wait
for the runway or the Tarmac or the slow and ticking baggage
claim to know he misses her more
than the arc of the lake shore at dawn.
He hopes she never waits for him and he hopes
that she will wait for him, always.
There are pieces of you in the sky,
a fair trade for the pieces of me buried
deep in winter soil, and I imagine that for you,
gravity works in reverse.
Krista Cox lives in South Bend, Indiana, where she studies English at Indiana University and practices English as a paralegal. She shares an old-lady house with two precious patience-testers and a dubious schnauzer. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Analecta, scissors & spackle, and FREE MONSTER POEMS ABOUT MONSTERS. Her OKCupid profile is a work of creative literary genius.
Amelia is a fascinating person to think about. My wife’s grandmother bought a house on Cape Cod in 1947. When I met my wife in 1975, I was told Amelia used to play there. I didn’t believe it, but liked fantasizing that the room I loved most, which got the best breezes, had been her favorite too. Finally, last year, I took out the blueprints to the house, built in 1933, bearing the name of the man who had it built. I discovered he was the third President of PG Putnam & Sons and first cousin to George Putnam. Their fathers had been business partners in running the company. So, in fact, the legend that Amelia used to play there is more than plausible, it’s almost certainly true. And the room where I convinced myself I still felt her energies–well, just maybe, it really had been her favorite room. We sold the house in 1999 because it was too far away and wasn’t being used enough.
Great poem and the comment’s story gives me an idea for a poem!