If asked, then lie

After the “Balloon Boy Incident,”
Fort Collins, CO. October, 2009.

For six years I kept you safe from it all;
sharp countertops.  The toxic lake algae.   The toxic grass.
I shut all the windows   so the toxic air wouldn’t get in.
I checked your fever   with a thin thermometer.
I uncanned soup   and paced the linoleum.
I told you to be silent   in the attic.   I put up posters
searching for your missing body.   I did not listen to the men
at the grocery store   who said they once saw you
running away from the yard   towards the highway,
between traffic lanes on all fours   like a determined deer.

I asked countless Hollywood producers   if they could
find a team of camera men   to record our family.
I begged air traffic control   to close the Denver airport.
I told everyone you were up there,   in our silver
weather-balloon   stuck in thin air.   I asked your father
again and again how we should phrase   our loss.
I prepared myself for the interviews,   the autographs,
my Good- Morning-America   debut. I put on waterproof
mascara. I thought of the intonation and voice
I would use to posture   as remorseful.

That is why   now,   after the reporters found
nothing inside the husk   of the balloon,
and you have returned from the attic,
and the people with cameras have all gone back
to Los Angeles,   I am here,   sitting on the lawn.
Watching a family of elk   cross one end of the highway
to the other,   thinking of all the mothers
without personal stylists.   Without anyone looking   at them
at all. Watching the elk.  Mowing the grass.   Washing a dish.
Three of four elk make it   across.   One of four, don’t.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.