Issue 2: Sherry O'Keefe

In a moment’s notice

  

I caught a flight on Alaska Airlines from Montana

to Oregon to help the man I love

help his father pass away.  Getting there

is not easy.  Billings to Helena to

Seattle to Portland to a remote coast

hours from any hospital. It was not yet

morning. The cabin was still

and dark. While we were in Montana airspace,

beer was complimentary.  As there weren’t many

of us, we each had our own row and reached

to salute one another with our plastic cups,

tossing back wishes for soft landings and clear

passage. Crossing Idaho, a grandmother in 15E

watched her son in the next row help his toddler kneel

by the window, waiting for the edge of the ocean

to appear. He wondered out loud how it would feel.

Ocean water lapping Seattle’s shore.  This salt

water with channel markers- how would it taste

and would he get a drink? His father told him

probably not, but Grandma whispered yes. 

--Sherry O’Keefe

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