there is a sad child
somewhere
over beyond those trees
where a red balloon
floated up from
his hand
and
into the blue,
fall
sky

I’m sure he pulls
at his mother’s hand,
begging her to look,
to notice,
but she will shuffle
him off, tugging
the boy along
as he points and
cries towards
the volume of rubber
growing smaller
and smaller in
the distance

there is nothing I can do,
nothing anyone can do
and I take solace in that

but I feel for the kid:

his first disappointment
in a long life filled with even
worse ones