Balloons

After the nightglow
odd spheres refute the sunrise.
Guyroped
underslung with hampered chaps
breathing
ha ha
hot gouts
into taut canvas bladders.
Ten, twenty
flights
doomed and sinking
in a morning
like flat champagne.

And with a hand
still curled round a greased cable
his feet
on a strut
and a world of dead air
under the suspension bridge
the judge reflects
that there is something
atavistic about balloon flights;
the hanging and the hope.
He always liked zeppelins;
the steel-cuffed gondolas
the fish knives and curlicued
pipe smoke
the humanity
o the humanity

and wind
rushes into his shirtsleeves.