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A badged man waves paper over my hands.
I ask what he wants to find. "Traces of explosives," the man explains. "Wow!" I remark to my palms. After takeoff, I ask the steward, "What do they want to know?" "If you built a bomb or fired a gun." The man across the aisle snickers. "She's old enough to be my mother." I want my forefinger to grow bony so I can poke him in the ribs and hiss, "These old hands have strangled cats." Instead, I fold my dangerous hands in an age-appropriate way, and smile when the snickering guy peeks to see if I am his mother. If mothers and grandmothers were screened for violent thoughts, airlines would go out of business. |
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AuthorNancy Harris McLelland taught creative writing, composition, and literature for over twenty years and Conducted writing workshops for the Western Folklife Center, Great Basin College , and the Great Basin Writing Project . An Elko County native with a background in ranching. McLelland has presented her "Poems from Tuscarora" Both at daytime and evening events at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. Her essay, "Border Lands: Cowboy Poetry and the Literary Canon" is in the anthology Cowboy Poetry Matters . Categories |
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