Elegy with a Red Balloon
by Bethany L. Carlson
Patterns of birds break across the sky.
We watch the motion, detached—
goldfish in a Ziploc bag.
Ashes to ashes, I say.
Graveside, she tells me to stop
serving all my questions over ice.
Please. Don't, she says.
But what she means is, when it rains
this hard in California, why does water sling
back to air before settling to dust?
Snatches of sunset puzzle through
her gold earrings. The Santa Ana's little flames
skim across the orange groves like tongues.
I wanted to let him know how much I loved
the angles he sewed around the sun,
the puppet with the missing mouth,
the way he said God is more
than a keepsake with a red balloon.
My mother turns, earrings full of sunset.
Later we will observe the sandbox
where I used to make angels
because there is no snow in San Diego.
Bethany Carlson is an MFA candidate at Indiana University. Publications have appeared or are forthcoming in Diagram, Stirring, Wicked Alice, and Ruminate. Bethany can also be found via Twitter under the pseudonym Abra Kah Dabra