Paper Plane

Father,

does the memory of your paper plane still linger

within the cradle of your thumb and finger?

Did the iodine tips of your ungloved hands

land their circled, banded brand upon its leaf,

as you measured and creased your pane of white,

in hope to scan a span of fruitful flight?

Were you ever tempted to blanche and bleach

those whorls away to hide the faults,

the blots, the stains?

Or are they marks of pride, that you had braced and primed

its wings and sides, until it could glide

and bare the weight of its own biting, sharpened nose,

without the bolster of your hands to hold?

But now, tell me, how do you like your sharp-nosed glider with faltering flight,

now it’s trajectories are broken and its canopy is wried?

Does it inherently fly in cycles and stream against the tide,

because its paper is derived from binds and sheets and spines of books

that edits could not mend,

the looped, circle-stitch of words,

the yarns which failed to end?

Well, father?

Do you hear the call?

Come one, come all,

and gawk upon see the paper plane that teeters on the edge of ugliness?

What a shame

What a sham

What a pain it could not span the way he hoped.

Ignore, them all

be damned, I say

it’s not your hand that holds the blame,

when some things just don’t fly right.