In the Final Months of My Parents’ Marriage

We are building a flying machine, my father, my brother, & me. We work in the attic of an abandoned house— to reach this room, we lean the rusting skeleton of a box spring against the wall & scramble up through a trap door. Wood glue, balsa, complicated mimeograph blueprint—it’s a kit from the Farm & Feed, a gift, a getaway vehicle; although none of us knows it yet, we are each in our own separate hurries away from this place. The work is delicate, requires a kind of care I’ve never had. They are both better than I am at this, if it were left up to me, I would crack these thin slices of wood, render them useless. Down the hill, a chert driveway, crushed stone & packed sand. Across the road, a field. Beyond that, behind a row of scrub pine & water oak, a river. But today it’s the field we need. An open space to test our work. A rubber band. A winding tight. A letting go & a grassy place to land.