Leslie’s Weekly sent me “Around the World with a Camera.”
Back in New York, I wanted to cover aviation.
My editor shrugged. Your neck, Harriet.
I enrolled in a school of sky to scoop New York,
learned to balance silk, bamboo, and steel,
shift my weight,
shape the arc, soar and swoop.
My costume? Leather gauntlets, a violet satin flight suit
with trousers I tuck into laced-up leather boots.
Father swears I no longer look like a respectable woman.
He sells Quimby’s Liver Invigorator door-to-door,
grumbles it’s unnatural to fly.
Mother winks. She knows I can button
my wide purple trousers
back into a long skirt if I choose propriety.
With a pilot’s license in my hip pocket,
I cross the Channel
in my Blériot: zero-zero, no visibility
in the fog, goggles so wet I can barely see.
I have the air intoxication,
and only a flier knows what that means.