Fly My Dirigible, Aida | Paris, 1903
Zebulon Huset
        —for Albert Santos Dumont

Climb aboard my dirigible, young one. The rope ladder is purposefully inexact and every blade of grass a metaphor from the right height—surprisingly low. Streetlights gaslit as toy poodles yap and we cheers to the din of chalice on hipflask.

--

Yesterday we conversed on sprinkles. Black, always.

The wind won’t take us again. We are more bound to the earth by an invisible tether even when I push and burn and rage against it. And yet we may be free—ish. This, is tonight, once more and if our feet refuse to lift themselves from everything at least let us lift the ground with us.

Elevation is key. The world a lock shackling not only us but all terrestrial stuff. Our beignet days caked in gutters outside cafes. Then—we fly.

We must. Come—climb aboard.

--

Like any other angel—Number Nine would fly from me should I let it. It must be chained. Its hydrogen contained. Its selfness held in. I cannot bear it to touch the ground—so its graceful oval follows me when ground-bound like the raincloud always blocking the sun. Until we ascend.

Climb the clouds as far as we dare. And then woe woe woe we land for as short an interval as my iron filings will allow.

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