I

On a seven-seater plane, 
the air is mine. Below, 

the ocean claims blood 
while the sun demands:

my birth reimagined; a boy 
and girl unsevered by truth,

above the Leeward Islands—
an air pocket startles with

the volcano behind me.
I say farewell to Montserrat,

heartened, the man next to me holds 
my hand—fatherly and in kind:

like the father who confirmed I am his—
like Dad who knows he’s mine. 

II

On my way to Puerto Rico, 
on a maternal line, 

purled in by my
blood sister, we are:

the daughter kept,
the daughter surrendered,

above the Bermuda Triangle,
thinking in couplets 

when the plane drops, 
we share a single thought:

We can’t die together.

Our mother doesn’t refer to me 
as hers; doesn’t know

I am with her daughter,
the one she swaddled.

She doesn’t know the woman  
who swaddled me, my mom; 

she knits like my sister, 
she knits for my sister’s daughter. 

III

No need for oxygen masks.
We keep breathing,

trusting double-sided stitch, 
we test a new pattern. 

IV

With her husband and daughter, 
my sister enjoys legroom. 

I sit where I can afford
(next to another teacher),

a mom enjoying a quick caesura;
during the last bounce, we hold hands.