Six Ways To Mistreat A Balloon, A Sestina

Why’d you have to go and hold this balloon under-
water? A balloon’s nature is to float, just as hopping is the nature
of a cricket, which makes trying to drown one so foul.
Could you not feel it struggling, fighting for air?
Your defense is a lack of intent, but saying ignorance is
nine/tenths of innocence indicates your guilt.

You are not supposed to puncture the balloon, and steal its air.
The balloon wanted to lift you up, to see the fowl
and geese and swan swim in the sky, with the sea far underneath.
Balloons don’t go along tying themselves to wrists, it’s
not something they do very often, not to add to your guilt.
We’ve never seen balloon behavior like that, even in nature.

To bat a balloon around on a short rubber string is
a cruel and uncalled for punishment. It was immature--
the pressure you put that balloon under
when it desired only to gently orbit your head and ebony hair.
The balloon was full, rotund, and finesse is not what it is built
for. You ignored this, asked too much, but you are no fool.

If you were merciful, you would understand
how much balloons need to be suspended in air.
They have no gravity, so letting one disappear into the flowing
tradewinds only invites it to hurt the natural
balance, being choked on by baby seals. Is
that going to give you more or less guilt?

To watch a balloon stuck in a tree, as if frozen in midair
or imprisoned by fingers, slowly exhale under
Earth’s pressure, become old, shrunk with guilt
over past misdeeds, but actually starving to death in the natural
way: slowing and surely, watched by an lonely owl
as it deflates, unable to withstand the strain, as fragile as it is.

The opposite isn’t much better, let your pretty words flow
into the rubbery form without end, filling it with your hot air,
watch the balloon grow round and complacent as you nurture
it, never letting the orb see the glass dome it is trapped under.
You just whisper beautiful untruths and spit until it is
burst open, ragged on the floor, its skin spilt.

It is a shame, really, that we can share a sky, breathe the same air
and rise above the foul stink of packaged air so naturally
but trading anger and guilt instead of love is a spell we’re under.

By Dan Steinbacher