Yesterday a rainbow wrapped my cockpit.
When I’m not flying, I’m planning to fly,
scribbling compass headings
on my cuff, counting records I set today,
records I might seize tomorrow.
To balance eight hundred pounds of plane
by feel and fuel gauge, I travel past jitters.
My ship wavers, shivers,
the scare is part of the thrill.
I sleep out on my hotel roof in November,
harden myself to a high, cold sky.
Then I brace for tailwinds, grip the controls.
With the wind behind me, I head east nonstop
at over a hundred miles an hour,
Chicago, Illinois, to Hornell, New York,
and I break the distance record—not
the women’s record, the American record—
five hundred and ninety miles. Done.