Red Balloon

​Why I write

Why you tie a balloon to a string —

To stay. To be.

To hold onto something:

A string of words,

taut with grammar’s gravity;

pulling down the up of the soul;

keeping life, gently, to the place, and

in the shape

of a hand.

A red balloon:

urgent yet delicate —

and difficult to miss,

should I lose my language and drift,

lift,

sentence-less,

syntax-less,

into the open poem of the sky.