Drifting, Still

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

The balloon drifts by the river,

its thin skin shivering in wind,

held by nothing but breath,

kept whole by pressure, by air,

by the silence between movement.

It rises alone, caught inside

a current larger than itself,

spinning without anchor, weightless,

certain only of the sky.

I think of my mother’s hands,

floured with morning, dusting the air

with stories sewn between hours.

I think of the market’s sprawl,

voices breaking against ripe fruit,

barter thick with sun and sweat.

These are the things I carry,

stitched to my ribs like thread.

Memory, shifting as breath, floats

beside me, light as the balloon,

offering glimpses before dissolving.

Dislocation is an absence with teeth,

a leaving that does not end.

It lingers in rooms, pressed

against windows, spilling into light.

It is standing still inside crowds,

a face lost in foreign sky,

a name slipping from tongues

not my own. The balloon, quiet,

knows this feeling too—adrift, visible,

held by nothing but longing.

Art is the net I cast,

the only way to keep

what wind would pull apart.

It catches the things that fade,

makes visible the half-remembered,

lets ink hold what hands cannot.

So I write. I kneel

by the river, let silence

spill into pages, let absence

shape itself into something whole.

Perhaps we are all balloons,

stitched with memory, filled with wind,

rising into skies without promise.

We drift, we waver, we hold

tight to what we have left.

Yet always, an unseen thread

keeps us from disappearing entirely.

Memory, love, the weight of art—

these things hold us still,

even as wind beckons away.

I watch the balloon dissolve,

swallowed by the empty sky.

It leaves nothing behind, no shadow,

no proof of passing. And yet,

I feel it still, pressing

light as breath against my ribs.