Blowing Boy

He is, I think, somebody else and not this

flapping and swaying apparition on strings,

Even his eyes are newly painted and not his

and I have seen his hands like a pair of old gloves

that are hungry for hands, hanging with only air

bulging the fingertips.

World is a wind about him, everything blows,

objects rise up and fly away like crows,

become small specks or nothing-cease to exist.

Within him, there

seems to be no ballast against this air.

He spins out on a long string grown tight

and splits an acre of blue sky like a kite.

Night laps about him; in the liquid dark

all his words are released and new words find him.

Like homing pigeons all his blowing thoughts

return to roost within him. He is huge -

the burning centre of

everything but most especially love.

Waking from dreams he sometimes is a ship

without the crew or chart to master it;

he is half master, half his master's fool,

but on the corner with the boys his laugh

can halve a passing girl and make him whole.