The confetti regrouped in the corner
and prepared for its second assault. We'd
had enough "fun," were sick of "fun" and
the feeling our hilarity was being siphoned off
to feed some enormous howdy-doody
parasite. I stared at the human in front of me.
She stared back. Our combined indifference
could inflate balloons which floated off
into the gray, contracting into little red dots
before they vanished. We'd been instructed
to wait for the great one, to which we could tie
a bucket big enough to hold us and lift us up
past the radios welded to the clouds, to
where the first satellites launched long ago
still orbit, and that from there, leaning over
the edge, carefully balanced on either side,
we could scoop up with a single glance
the landscape that had always framed our lives.
It was to be vermilion & kelly green,
alive & shimmering at the margins,
and we were to be very full of wondering
and very far from realizing that, among other
things, tact & balance were still called for.