Veronica Tucker
Coffee, Lipstick, Turbulence
for my mother, flight attendant, 1974
She wore heels
to serve coffee at thirty thousand feet.
Reapplied lipstick
after every passenger passed judgment.
Her hair was a helmet
of style and survival.
They called her honey,
sweetheart,
asked her to smile
as if they’d bought it
with the ticket.
She knew the evacuation routes
better than her own street.
Could pop open an emergency slide
in under ten seconds
but wasn’t allowed
to gain five pounds
or speak her mind.
She used to say
the sky felt freer
than the ground ever did,
though she also said
her ankles always ached.
It was work that looked like leisure,
grace on a deadline,
beauty required.
Now, when my daughters fly,
they see women in flats,
commanding the cabin
like it’s a vessel of possibility.
And I see my mother,
still somewhere up there,
carving space
in a world just beginning to change.