Balloons are in their element today
the sky a perfect, fresh-mint shade of blue
without a wisp of cloud. My sister sucks
lemon juice through a broken peppermint
swirl stick. A brass marching band booms
behind us in the field. Bullhorn in hand,
our teacher herds us out past the bleachers.
Ordinary string feels like gold thread
between my fingers, tethered to a small
latex planet heavy enough to whip
right into orbit the second it’s released.
A tag bears my name, age and school
so if it’s found as far off as Juneau
they’ll mail it back, stick a colored pin
on the map of the world. Some go
far past Juneau to China, Indonesia.
Others plunk down right on our street,
seduced by gravity.
In three seconds
a thousand bright orbs will escape our fists,
eclipse the sun with a brilliant bouquet
of dreams modest enough, by any reckoning,
to still come true.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 4.
Marc Alan Di Martino is a Pushcart-nominated poet, translator and author of the collections Still Life with City (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His work appears in Palette Poetry, Rattle, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox, Valparaiso Poetry Review and many other journals and anthologies. Currently a poetry reader for the Baltimore Review, he lives in Italy.
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