Woman who flies an aeroplane by ann howells

What do you call her, this woman who flies an aeroplane? Who knows a magneto from a windsock? Whose favorite childhood poem began, How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue ... At six a swing, at twelve a rollercoaster—Ferris wheel too bland—at eighteen she’s airborne. Wings any skylark would die for. When Amelia flew through that window in time, she unlocked doors. Hand firmly on the stick, she pulls back, laughing up the sleeve of a cyclone, millions of neurons sparking in sequence, every ganglion aquiver, frisson cracking her spine clear to the tailbone. A persistent wind is inconsequential as the annoying telemarketer who uses her first name repeatedly because that’s what he was taught in annoying telemarketer school. She gazes into wide blue wonder, sky its immense self this morning, few blood-colored clouds. The boundary between here and there becomes elusive, impossible to pin down. Mystifying. Viscerally satisfying. So, what do you call her, this woman who flies an aeroplane? You call her a pilot.

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Ann Howells’s poetry appears in Borderlands, Spillway, THEMA and in anthologies: Goodbye, Mexico and The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VIII: Texas (Texas Review Press), Pushing the Envelope and Texas Weather Anthology (Lamar University Press) and elsewhere. She has edited Illya’s Honey since 1999, recently going digital (www.IllyasHoney.com) and adding a co-editor. Publications include: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag), Under a Lone Star (Village Books), Letters for My Daughter (Flutter), and Cattlemen & Cadillacs, as editor, (Dallas Poets Community). Ann served as President of Dallas Poets Community for four years and as Treasurer for many more.

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