Puff of Eternal Hot Air
Sometimes I think I sleepwalked
Into an obliteration chamber that failed
Leaving me merely invisible
Take the time stranded in a long line
At a Dollar Tree, while the clerk inflated
A bunch of balloons and that break
In the action gave an elderly woman time
To take the floor to share a piece of her life
She tells my wife, “Someday you’ll do this”
While holding up a bunch of artificial flowers
She’s going to place on her husband’s grave
I might as well have been hanging in effigy
Off an errant balloon that the A/C
Is bouncing along the ceiling for tots
Considering methods to go airborne
Her hubby fought in WWII and they were
Engaged before she finished high school
He insisted on a diploma before wedding
I imagine inhaling helium and freaking
Her out as if my voice were from a crypt
Landscaped with palms tall and plastic
Outside I say no blossoms or Mylar tributes
For me and I recall the clerk revealing that
The world supply of helium is waning
I release my some-morning-I-will-not-rise
Fear as a mere puff of eternal hot air as any
Man acquainted with invisibility might do
About the Author: Thomas M. McDade is a 74-year-old resident of Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Virginia Beach, VA and at sea aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF 1091).
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Hot Air Balloon Jubilee Festival, Decatur, Alabama” (2010) The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 