Climbing into the belly of the P-47,
Grampa's old leather jacket creaks—
Smooth and warm
like his barker lounger
cradling echoes & dreams woven in its folds.
He straps me in, the scent of raspberries
And mirschum-pipped tobacco
lingers on his skin—
Remnants of summers sweet
Mixes magically with the cold, engine oils.

"Piss-cutter," he chuckles, thumbing the dials,
his voice a crackle in the headset,
a term of endearment born from an old war's camaraderie,
mysterious as the clouds we're set to chase.

The engines roar to life, propellers slicing
through the reluctant air, as the old warbird
shakes off decades of stillness, hungry for the sky.
Below us, the world shrinks to a patchwork quilt—
neat rows of houses, threads of rivers, and dotted green,
Threads and tears made into buck-skin quilts.

We rise, the horizon bends, time peels away;
the young colonel beside me, eyes sharp & clear.
I am four again, and he is ageless, a full bird in flight.
Through the headset, over the engine's growl,
he tells tales of dogfights and buddies lost,
voices that soared high and fell silent,
under the same sun that watches us now.

He loops the Thunderbolt under the belly of the sky,
a pilot’s grin on his face, defying gravity,
the same way his laughter would light up the dim living room,
cut through the haze of afternoon naps.
His joy raw like juniper berries in germany
higher than we ought to go, the earth a distant memory.

Too soon, he banks the plane towards home,
the descent more melancholy than any sunrise funeral
As the runway rushes up to take us,
I clutch the memory tight—
this flight, his warmth, his love & the rasp of his voice.

We touch down, the world rushing back,
his presence fading into the echoes of propellers,
but in every wrinkle of leather, every blush of raspberry,
I hear him chuckle, "Piss-cutter,"
And see him gleaming—
His full bird wings, forever caught
in the sun's last rays.

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