RUBY

She’d be a ruby if she was a stone, 

something sparkly and raw, sitting 

in the wide Air Canada seat, all 

alone, mother off in the bathroom 

with her three-year old brother, a sharp 

piece of coal.   She peers across the aisle 

at me, wonder forming out of fear, 

tiny fingers stirring ripples of 

relationships in the air.   The earphones 

she’s sucking on are soggy bits of calm, 

the seatbelt loosely draped around her waist 

an act of faith.   And me, I’m the promise 

of a future, a fall turning into 

a crawl already well on its way to 

a footstep.   But for now she’s all beckon, 

a rosy beam of drool, drawing me 

out of my seat, down on my knees, 

a full-grown peek a boo.   Together, 

we make the two cold bracelets on her wrists 

shimmer, riding shotgun over washboards 

of turbulence, proving language 

a completely unnecessary fool.   

She does the ruby thing again, black eyes 

like tiny ellipses.   While I recite 

my list of baby babble, poems built 

from snorts and whooshes, the sorts of sounds 

Fisher Price would stuff into a toy.   

Five minutes at the most before mother 

is back with a freshly scrubbed face and 

a new supply of devotion.   

I can see a glimmer of the ruby 

inside her as well, a sudden gush of 

gleam lifting me off my knees and back 

to my seat.    Dismissed.   Do I make too much 

of it, this being shone on?   Am I 

embarrassed enough for the stewardess 

to be alarmed?   I look back across 

the aisle and see myself forgotten, 

gravel dimming in the moonlight.

© Barry Dempster