Calvocoressi, "The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart"

I. Clem Sanders, bystander

It was late spring and silent,
beach-grass switched like skirts
of women walking past shop

windows on their way to church,
heads bent beside their husbands
come up from orange groves

just greening. I was distracted
by a bird, which was no more
than shoal-dust kicked up by wind.

I missed her waving good-bye,
saw only her back, her body
bowing to enter the thing.


II. Bo McNeeley, flight mechanic

I go back there sometimes and think
about things I could have done
differently, little things, really,

like looking at her when she spoke
to me or giving her my jacket
when she got cold. Things you would do

for anyone. One time she said
the body of a plane was like the belly
of a horse. The whole bar cried

Crazy bitch when I told them that.
My dad used to come home dark
from the mines and beat his day out

of us. You couldn’t tell soot from bruises
till you washed. Sometimes I dream
of flying. Mostly it’s that she’s come

back. We’re hunkered under the plane
and she’s telling me a thing or two
about a world away from here.


III. Diane McGinty, St. Mary’s Home for Wayward Girls

Everybody makes mistakes,
says something they don’t mean.
He was the first and kind.

He said we should get away.
I guess they all say that
till they’re standing on your porch,

fists in their pockets,
saying they can’t come in
and why weren’t you more careful?

I don’t think she meant for it to happen.
She probably just lost control
and before she knew,

everything had changed.
I bet she was scared all along
but couldn’t tell anyone

because they’d just say
she got herself into this mess
and had better get herself out.


IV. David Putnam, stepson

I didn’t want to be there
and she knew it, joked about it,
her sandpaper voice calling,

Chicken Little, afraid
it will all come crashing down?
It wasn’t that at all. She was

always leaving, always climbing
up from where we could reach her.
Even at home or on the street

you would look away and she
would be gone, walking between
cars or just standing there not

answering as you said her name
or touched the arm of her coat.
She was already gone. I knew

because there was no difference
between the sky swallowing her
and living in her house.


V. Doris Luman, housewife

It’s easy to lose someone. Last
week, walking my son to school,
I turned away for a second.

Next thing I know he’s in the street
and I’m running toward him crying
because in my mind he’s gone,

bones littering the ground
like a plate shattered so fine
you’re picking up pieces for weeks.

And it’s not just outdoors,
in the schoolyard or the bus station.
You can lose a person at home

in the safest possible place,
a place you could walk blindfolded.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised

when that woman got lost.
Because it’s always like that.
One day, walking through a room,

you realize what you were holding
is gone and you can’t find it, even
when you get down on your knees.


VI. Harry Manning, former radio operator

I dream she’s found me hiding
on a farm along the shore,
and my fault she left

and stayed away so long.
She says she’s not mad,
but isn’t coming back

because everyone’s given up.
Even her husband packed away
her clothes and someone burned

her maps. So she couldn’t get home
if she tried. And she doesn’t want to.
Then she turns away

and I’m left alone, calling
How will I get home without you?
The whole world tastes like salt,

crows overhead shout, Gone, gone,
gone. She can’t help me any more.
I’ll have to walk.


VII. Joel Sullivan, miner

How do you tell your children
they’ll never get away?
Tell them their only choice

is factories or the mines,
bent heads or blackened lungs.
Amelia Earhart is a dream

my daughter won’t give up.
Sometimes I want to shake her,
tell her what small towns are,

how the coal dust coats your skin
till darkness never leaves you
and the sky doesn’t matter much

when you’re wheezing underground.
She won’t believe that woman’s dead.
She says, I think it’s romantic

to disappear. I bite my tongue
to keep from telling her
she’ll get her chance in time.


VIII. John Larkin, ground control

When her signal died
I left the room
and washed my hands

till the hot water ran out.
It was all static:
the radio crackling

like shirts on the line,
her husband hunched over,
head in his hands.

Nothing looked different
because no one could move,
fold the maps, turn off

the lights and leave her
wherever she’d gone.
We watched the planes

in the field disappear,
leaving us alone
as evening came down.


IX. Susan James, high-school teacher

Matthew works night-shift
and sleeps his way through class.
Camille’s father lost an arm

to the canning factory.
She left us to take his place.
I could go on all day

talking about fifteen-year olds
who might as well be forty.
I wanted them to see her fly.

This is the picture I have:
5 o’clock in the morning,
they’re all here except Matthew

who meets us at the factory gate.
We’re walking. There isn’t any bus.
I’m telling them to hurry

and they’re trying but they’re tired.
I want them to make it so badly
I tell them to run. And then we’re there

in the roar, she’s waving goodbye,
and we’re all waving back.
Even after she’s in the plane,

even after she’s gone, we’re waving
and grinning, all the way back to class
where Matthew struggles

to keep his eyes open,
and Ramón says, If I was her
I’d never come back.

X. George Putnam, husband

Afterwards she was everywhere:
a map in the glove compartment,
shoes on the stairs, her wedding ring

on the bathroom sink. I found
her house keys by the phone
and wondered how she’d get back

inside. Of course I wasn’t the only
one: everybody thought they’d seen
her, especially children

who wondered if she was hiding
from me. One girl wrote,
When my father yells

I hide in the barn. Do you have a barn?
The last time I saw Amelia Earhart
she was three steps ahead of me,

crossing to the other side
of the street. I almost died trying
to reach her, called her name over

the traffic and when she turned back
it was a young man, startled
by my grasping hand, saying sorry

but I was mistaken. Then she was gone;
clothes sent, car sold, nothing left
to look for. Except airplanes

which are everywhere now
and take me back to her, turning
away from our expectant faces.



Gabrielle Calvocoressi