I haven't seen many since
But I did today, driving home
It drifted across the Baltic blue
Like a comically large,
rainbow-colored mote
In some giant's eye
For years
I've tried to forget
Tried to stop wondering
But as it likes, the world insists
In the first gentle bump of an
elevator
Or the flirty lightness in my
stomach
As I drive over a swell of road
I tell myself
I miss you less
Than that hot air balloon ride we
never took
The day you dropped me, from us
Easy, like ballast
Now I'm forced to imagine
The grand balloon's deflated,
nylon envelope
Folded and cold in some dark shed
Unused, like my dream’s own
overstock
That summer, lying in my bed
And burning with hurt and anger
I resolved to save all my money
And buy a balloon of my own
One I could take out at will
To fly out over your house
And fire the flame as I pass
The frustrated snort and glare of
an angry god
Casting an orange, hateful glow
Over your house
A super-imposed hellfire
To burn it down, with you inside
But then
I also imagine the stoked burner
How it would bathe my skin in
heat
As your lips had once done
And I remember the hot rush of
our breath
That together, made me buoyant
How beneath you, I had floated
along, seemingly forever
Gliding low and smooth and
effortless
Barely off the ground
Just one remove from reality, but
enough
To make it abstract, and bearable
Me, you, and the unchanging blue
above
And that ever gentle, sideways
lift
Of real, longtime love
