The Fate of Balloons

The clown held the strings together
in his fist, a bird was folding
itself from a thinning line.
The clown looks upon the mass
of huddled sticks, swallowed
by their clothes, tired from their flight, tired
of losing things, families, limbs, names,
the children picking at grains of sand.
The natural state of a child:
envision wings on everything
and watch them fly away.
If we attached wings onto those missiles,
will they fly away from us too?
The clown has no answer.
What he does have are balloons,
wingless, full of nothing, fueled by nothing,
but flying all the same.
He wants to tell them:
You can be like these balloons,
fly away on illusory wings,
each feather, a thought, a dream.
You can run away on nothing.
But knows better than to lie:
Even the balloons in his hand
will be shot down once they’re freed.