Wide as the horizon, sharpened by the westerlies,

       a cloud-blade reaped the sky:  it bled blue

tinged with peach, fresh air pushing out the old.

       As far as it was, it was not out of reach

& cold refused to touch me.  Our airy balloon,

       our atmosphere contains a hot tear

Of a world turning and circling in the star-warmed void.

       Our wonder rises & still we foul our nest.

From a distance, gunfire sounds like balloons popping

       at a happy party but when I fire my guns from their rest

they insist on sounding like a huge and terrible door

       in Hell slamming shut.  Out of this reverie I

rise & fall as I will, dropped to my slouching feet

       in a line, a queue says it best, waiting as

inconspicuously as I can to be expressed as a sum

       & you know the rest.

The harried woman ahead of me held the floor,

       grabbed the attention of the whole grocery store,

“They even tax balloons! Why?  I can’t take this anymore!

       Uninflated blue balloons for my son’s birthday, taxed!”

The door inside me that usually opens onto my

       mezzanine of Sympathy failed.  Another passage,

suitable only for other things, released something

       most often suppressed and in my best most bombastic,

“Truly!?  A tax upon balloons?” I thundered, “Outrageous!

       Balloons are a form of affordable fun & thus

should never be taxed!  Someone should run for office

       to repeal this evil tax at once!”  The harried mom

shook her head, received remote approval from her bank & fled,

       leaving me to complete my commerce-in-reverse

with the two lady-employees at the register still discussing

       the balloon tax as well as my response.

“Well,” the senior cashier drawled, regarding me warily

       “if we can’t eat it, they’ll tax it. That’s it.”

Those in line behind me murmured their firm support

       for her assessment & she smirked in triumph as she

coughed up my refund in coins.