The Flight Home

The lability of the baby's moods
will make flying home for the
holidays difficult, the seatbelt sign
flickers on and off like a shuddering
  
lighthouse, an island of steadiness
inside this silver tube jostling through
cloudbanks and turbulence. Her face
collapses like a caramel dropping
  
from its wrapper into tears, then the
cushions rush with laughter that
vanishes as the sky lightens, a flash
of skyward lightning brightening a
  
carousel of smiles and wails, tiny
thunderheads, her rotating disposition
a personal weather system within
our narrow aisle. Passengers glance
  
over magazines and toggled phones,
a symphony tuning up awkwardly,
each wave of infantile emotion as
unpredictable as our upcoming landing.