11.2.19

the cummin menage a trois


ya gotta love a February lovefest  the menage a trois  Bolton getting in on the Hanoi action   he brings a ticklish moustache

1805,  Monday,  11  2. 19

sailing


a brightblue helium balloon

trailing a long yellow ribbon

slowly  delicatelyturning climbing into the gray sky

he could have assumed it was a childs toy

but why should a balloon belong only to a child

had he been near when it escaped or was released he would have jumped tried to catch it
                                                                                              he wouldnt have given it back

unfortunately all he could do was watch its silent ascent and as he did he remembered when he was a boy he floated sticks in the rainwater that churned in the street gutters imagining they were birch bark canoes and he rode inside them
and he imagined he was bound to the balloon going higher and higher and how wonderful the earth and hills and trees looked from far above 

he wasnt an ignorant boy 
                           he knew once he committed to the canoe ride he might not be able to leap to safety before it trembled and fell over the steel slants of the street grates or if he could beat the odds that the helium would escape the balloon would deflate and return him gently to earth rather than the breathtaking thrillthe sudden freefall if it poppedPOPPED!  perhaps life should end with a champagne pop a deafening scream a sudden rollercoaster ride your heart in your throat and trying to breath around its insane beating


he stood and watched the balloon while in the sky  brightblue   a dot    a speck     until he couldnt see it any more

he quit breathing high in his chestquit the thrill he imagined for its great height and distance from where it began wondering all the seconds that elapsed
                                         woandered all the seconds from where he and everyone began


he remembered the pageantrythe solemnity of the wakes the churches the black hearses the black family cars the dazzling flowersbreathtaking like fireworks shaking their heads in the flower car  he remembered the crawl of the funeral processions the raw open earth at the cemetery  the coffins  the bodies inside themremembered their awful rigidness when he kissed them goodbye the last time so terribly unlike when he kissed them while they were alive  remembered whispering Goodbye I love you so much 

while his memories flickered like old films in his eyes he transposed themoverwhelmed them with the precious flight of the brightblue balloon and then and there as he lost sight of it he decided hed have his ashes held in a cheap brown paper bag wound in a ribbon tethered and released to who-knows-where as his life had been carried to that destination
by a rubyred helium balloon

                                   he could hear his daughters gasp
his lover laugh

0123 or 1323,  Saturday,  9  2. 19
1411,  Monday,  11  2. 19
Christopher Cross  Sailing  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IST-GfqUwDA