Scott Simpson · Poetry

WATERLOO IOWA BALLOON LAUNCH

Selected Poems 1989 to 2009 · source pages 175

The original line breaks, stanza spacing, and placement are preserved. Long lines scroll horizontally.

Source page 175

"Men of Galilee, why do you stand

looking into the sky?" Acts 1:11

They've opened the golf course to spectators.

I find a patch of unclaimed fairway and

spread a blanket.

The balloons swell in the grass

like beached whales under hot sun

until they right themselves

each rainbow belly

pendulous

birthing heavy pouches

over treetops

bobbing into blue June sky eclipsing

the sun.

I allow them to lumber over my

body. I close my eyes

begin to lift myself.

My arms and legs shrivel

atrophy, as something earthly

is displaced in me

and I tug against my umbilicus

above the thick, new-mown grass

the damp soil beneath,

layers of rock

and the whole breathing, churning

Terran core: everything

that makes physical argument with

ascension.

Like a single filing I've been held

against the magnet

cued up with a thousand others watching

making visible in the relation

of one body to the next and the next

gravity's inconstant hold

twitching, responding

compelled to ascend

even after the balloons have passed.