Mother to Mother by Vicki Iorio

The geese take over the runway

when production of the F14 shuts down.

 

Long after their winged visas expire

these immigrants stay

 

on Long Island, finding the climate

kinder than Canada.

 

Clipboard in hand, heavy with you,

I waddle into the boneyard in search of scrap metal.

 

 Nesting with her green goslings in a broken cockpit,

a gray mother hisses at me and refuses

 

to leave the pilot seat even after I flash

my Government ID.  I put off the disposal

 

 of this fuselage, while I wait for these fledglings

 to become juveniles, for the military

 

precision of their flyby.

---

Vicki Iorio is the author of the poetry collection, Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press, 2013) and the chapbook, Send me a Letter (dancinggirlpress). You can read Iorio's work in Hell strung and Crooked, I Let Go of the Stars (Great Weather for Media), The Brownstone Poets Anthology, The San Pedro Review, The Mom Egg, Crack the Spine, The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Fem Lit Magazine, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine, Concise, Cactus Heart and Rattle (online).