The Blue Suitcase

She wanted new luggage,
Good luggage. She wanted
It to be distinctive,

Not just more black cases
Circling the carousel,
Arrival passengers

Clawing like scavengers,
Like a cloud of vultures,
Trying to snag their own.

She chose a powder-blue
Set, the most expensive.
The next year, she traveled

The world with her lover,
Then partner, fiancé,
Husband by their return.

The luggage held up well.
By then, she hated them,
Those powder-blue cases,

So ugly, so tasteless,
So heavy to drag through
Airports around the world.

She became a mother.
She traveled less and less
By air, more overland.

More than a dozen years
And a divorce later,
The last of that luggage,

Extracted from storage,
Served now as her daughter’s
Sturdy, powder-blue case

Packed for every exchange,
From mother to father
And back again, covered

In cool stickers, useful
As hell, expandable,
Durable, well-loved shell.