By Kara Knickerbocker
We’re waiting in the belly of the plane
when she says the tests came back positive,
congestive heart failure—
and there is no air, no way out
of this window seat of my mind,
internet searches for treatment
as we cry surrounded by strangers
their voices filling the aisles,
while your heart fills with fluid,
every heavy exhale a reminder.
How many times have we sat like this,
shoulder to shoulder?
In church pews, on long drives
side by side, oh steady mother heart.
For all these years I’ve practiced
pacing my breath, standing tall
because this time, you need me to.
You taught me how to walk but now
I just want to crawl back into the belly
of this woman, in the belly of this plane,
she’s the only one who knows my heart
from the inside out, always has.
Kara Knickerbocker is the author of The Shedding Before the Swell (2018) and Next to Everything that is Breakable (2017). Her work has most recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Poet Lore, The Laurel Review, Cabildo Quarterly, Pretty Owl Poetry, and the anthologies The Voices from the Attic, Vol. XXII, and Best Emerging Poets. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she works at Carnegie Mellon University, writes with the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University, and co-curates the MadFridays Reading Series. Learn more about her on her website.