ALAS, POOR BALLOON
A terrible dare! The mortal hour! Begin: place your mouth, the tiny one, on forbidden folds. The
cats are entranced. Cats? Shadows. Alas, poor balloon before fall weather. Mondays, the sad
attendant is a child. Crickets in the mortuary – I was never opened, no key. Le poète maudit
swoons once, annuls his sonnets, seeks life in a universe more scarlet. Grief-dust is unsealed in
the library but the same long name floats up, summer cumulus followed by magpies. Cloud-
linens lay out spring’s clear routes. Open a door, the revenant is an iridescent if if given to
nonstop apneas. Rilke’s elegy is the first to hallow the washing. Sirens and little dolls in a pear
tree. Our wanderer is paper-thin, thank you, bees promise alibis. Thank you.
Glint Literary Journal 