The plane shakes,
grazing the airport runway,
and I watch Dad sink deeper into his window seat,
unfurl his dimples and grin
as the flight attendant’s lilt
jolts the cabin out of our six-hour stupor,
him into relief.
At home—not his
—he sometimes stutters,
blood pulsing to his fair, tautened cheeks
when my sister mocks his cadence.
Here, squeezed next to me and her, he chats away,
hardens his ‘r’s,
adds syllables where they don’t belong, technically,
but I think sound just right
because he’s beaming,
reclining beyond what economy legroom allows,
rejoicing at coming home,
at seeing his sisters
and knowing they don’t mean it
when they call him an eejit.*
He peers out the puny, oval window,
perceiving green beyond the runway gray.
*An Irish colloquialism for “idiot.”