The Old Address Book

Each slow turn of the curling page is a wave
breaking on a beach – and there on the scuffed
and scribbled foam are decades of old friends
and people I never met or hardly knew.
I acknowledge them with a smile.
 
And here I find a long deceased close relative;
her last address – and a telephone-number.
It’s kind of funny – I’m tempted to dial –
But suppose I hear a distantly familiar voice?
What on Earth would I say ?
 
I laugh to myself. Another page curls over
spreading its nearly whiteness; and someone –
a name I do not seem to remember – is there
floating like a face beneath the surface.
Then I remember her :
 
Back in ’96, she was the first of our class
in flying school; first to fly solo – her enthusiasm
driven by knowing that a certain paralysis
would first claim the use of her hands.
I pause for several moments
 
given to reflection; then perceive her name,
her call-sign, not scribbled on some
oceanic page, but scripted in a swirl of sky-writing
far above clouds – in her element – angels high;
Juliet Alpha
                                        November Echo.
 

Rik Wilkinson

published in Acumen 56, 2006