The Spitfire
Whiz of spinner
and then a roaring whine,
The engine's voice-
a smooth high rapid sputter.
Quiver of ailerons.
A World War II bomber on the grass
twitching to lunge up
to swell breeze into wind and surge and soar.
He takes it by the torso-
the fuselage-
lifts it up agilely,
this thing he built in our dingy basement,
and carries it out past the rail, puts it down.
It scurries off, bumping a straight line up the field.
Distance makes the model more real
and she gathers speed, lurches up and off
to swoop with pleasure or nerves
I'm not sure, as my husband twitches the controls
on the radio, both our hearts thumping as origins flit up-
Duxford, where we first saw that shade of blue on a Spitfire.
Ipswich, where we found the kit in a narrow shop.
Gatwick's airport customs which almost made us miss
our own long flight home:
Our three exhausted children fidgeting
and we lost the baby's bottle somewhere in the airport
because we were so absorbed in carefully
keeping the Spitfire, with foam core wings, safe.
The box was bigger than our oldest boy.
That same boy has grown several inches taller while
spending rapt hours watching his father build the Spitfire.
And now that child gazes with blue eyes at the Spitfire's grace
as she loops and leans into a turn and waggles
as she zips past us, into another era, up over
always on the edge of crash, as her pilot hurries to learn
how to fly her.
Winter 1998 Issue of Poet's Paper, Anderie Poetry Press
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