III. Wings

by Wanda Campbell

    for Jessica Whitney Dubroff (1989-1996)

Women Fly. That's the claim
embroidered in black letters
            on her pink baseball cap
            forever seven, she graces

the cover of TIME
no longer a little girl
            failing to pilot a plane
            across the continent but a parable

I read on my flight to Toronto
while outside my window
            the earth turns under her green quilt
            like a pregnant woman seeking ease

I'm going to fly till I die says Jessica
straight down like a lawn dart says an eyewittness
            we know, in the end, the grown-up pilot had taken over
            because his arms were more fractured than hers

Women Fly

Harriet Quimby, first woman to fly the English Channel
but everyone too busy salvaging Titanic dead to notice
             months later she was flung from her plane
             to be swallowed by that same ocean

Amelia Earhart in leather and pearls, swallowed
by the other ocean, then Christa McAuliffe
             first civilian in space
             swallowed by the sky

there were women who broke records without being broken themselves but they
             are not the ones we remember
             Daedalus had a daughter

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