At the Air and Space Museum

By Linda Pastan b. 1932 Linda Pastan

When I was

nearly six my

father 

opened his magic

doctor bag: 

two

tongue depressors fastened by 

a rubber

band; 

one flick

of his hairy wrist 

and lo!

we invented 

flight.

Linda Pastan, “At the Air and Space Museum” from Heroes in Disguise, published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright © 1991 by Linda Pastan. Reprinted by permission of The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc.

Source: Heroes in Disguise (W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1991)

Biography

Poet Linda Pastan was raised in New York City but has lived for most of her life in Potomac, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. In her senior year at Radcliffe College, Pastan won the Mademoiselle poetry prize (Sylvia Plath was the runner-up). Immediately following graduation, however, she decided to give up writing poetry in order to concentrate on raising her family. After ten years at home, her husband urged her to . . .

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