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.

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Vicki Iorio is the author of the full-length poetry collections Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press) and Not Sorry (Alien Buddha Press) as well as the chapbooks Send Me a Letter (dancinggirlpress) and Something Fish (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals including The Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, poets respond on line, The Fem Lit Magazine, and The American Journal of Poetry. Vicki is currently living in Florida but her heart is in New York.