Balloon

Lacey is trying to catch crows on her tongue. She stands in the back yard, a fenced in lot of brown grass. The sky is clean as a plate. Lacey turns in circles, her skirt spins a song, it takes too long; the dishes pile up inside the kitchen window. I am trying to tolerate a balloon. Blue as the nose of a drunk, it bobs like a wish, foolish. It drifts from its anchor, a tiny red fist. It roams among the heads on the street, ignored like the beggars, barging in and out of crowds, lifted by the static cling of another’s happiness. I see myself in the time it takes to float away. I see the birthdays, tied to colors and strings that make little girls dance. I see the candles in my eyes, blurry as bathwater, blowing out the fire in my appetite. I see years walk away, without looking. Lacey, twirling on her square of earth slows, and stops, like the ballerina in a music box.