Flashback

Air thick with
Jet fuel
Fighter planes
Zip past
High in the sky
Cover my ears

Skip across
Hot asphalt
Toward the
Wide gaping hangar

Skirt around
Uniform clad airmen
Sweaty
Busy
Intense

Up
Cement stairs
Leading to
His office

There my dad sits
Writing at his
Gray metal desk
Preoccupied
Unaware
That we are there

He’s not expecting us
It’s a surprise

I bound over
Leap into his arms
Innocent of
The heaviness
Of his tasks

Smiling
He catches me
Anyway

©2014 Jill Baker