Notes to the NTSB

by Vicki Iorio

When the plane crashes
I land
in my mother’s kitchen

Ma, at the sink
shifts flour for a yellow cake
to match our yellow curtains

Dinner is in the oven

She is not surprised to see me
or the nose of the plane
cartooning our ceiling

Sitting at the warped
fomica table I do
long division

Perpetual transistor radio
plays Paul Anka
Connie Francis
time-lines to the the Kennedy Assassination
Freedom Marches
The first blackout
The second blackout
911

and the shootings
the shootings
the shootings

Ma faces the sink
I watch her back and know
which apron she wears
by the apron strings:
consciousness-raising apron
burning bra on her chest

Scrabble apron
bib stitched with a board winning bingo

There is the crackle of roast beef cooking
Gastric temptation of searing fat
The old boil of vegetables

I find home

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Vicki Iorio, a native Long Islander is a graduate of Hofstra University. Vicki’s poetry has been published in the San Pedro Review, hell strung and crooked, Uphook Press, Great Weather for Media, Tattoosday, Long Island Quarterly, Toward Forgiveness Anthology, Whispers and Shouts, Boone Dock Review, Performance Poets Literary Review, Bards Annual and Spillway

This past spring, Vicki published her first full length poetry collection, Poems from the Dirty Couch.