Lovely Penguin

This poem is about how trauma shatters a little girl’s reality and her once-rosy perception of earthly justice.

The paper jet plane
By Marie Gordon

I can see myself now
When I called this body home
When Daddy set the tee ball
When paper airplanes soared high

There is a little girl
Pulling back a pony tail
Ready to bat and conquer
Coloring her paper wings

She’s invincible
Smudging off bright face paint swirls
Swinging home runs at the plate
Launching her jet plane up high

This is a simple time
Before swollen, tired gray eyes
Sworn in on the witness stand
Scribbled teary paper goodbyes

This is a better time
When a squelched reality
Struggled to mutter a word
And time smoothly glided by

Now I watch the plane dive
And watch as the wrinkles scrunch
And make my trembling approach
Toward an uncertain runway

I cannot pretend now
To be a tomboy princess
This time I can’t grip the bat
Or fly off with paper wings

I must face brutal fact
That earthly justice has failed
That smirking devils do roam
To haunt and to tempt my hate

I am no longer me
I have scrubbed this body raw
I am swinging at the wind
My paper jet plane has crashed

I do not rise again
With eager, rose-tinted eyes
No longer fearless at bat
Trembling hands fold loopy planes

I am not a Phoenix
Because I’m not the same bird
I’m now the victim species
An unheard truthful witness