Air and Space

We took to the air.
We conquered space.

Seat 12 A finds Sam alone with Mama and Marcel
behind, marvelling at how my almost five
has already claimed air travel as his own-
while I try to keep Houdini at two
from the call button, again.

Washington, D.C. landing at night
lights large on merrily lit lawns.
Keeping tired eyes wide
the entire ride to Nana's house we go.

Waking to birthday balloons
jelly donuts and the promise of a day
devoted to being high and five.

Birthdays are for adoptees either of epic import
or stuffed under the carpet hushed for another year
Sam falls under the first category:
airplane+bowling alley+pizza party meet the bill.

I can be an astronaut
as he places his flag in the new moon of his independence.
Tonight this explorer is on his first overnight
with Grampy and Grammy Bear-Bear and Blankie,
I'm here with the co-pilot and
Nana navigating a lift off of another direction.
Marcel lands so softly in my heart these days.

The territory that I am fogged in again is the familiar
ground of dissapointment unwrapped.
Being fourteen wrapped in forty-one.

Motherhood is a gravitational pull
though not always pulling me to the mother I want to be
in a yoga pose, sleep deprived on the warm carpet before
the waiting tree I promise myself
space to let this be enough-for once.