I stopped a man from flying his kite
at gasworks I was protecting a balloon
it was a statue of liberty head that filled the blue sky
I was paid 10 dollars an hour to turn and stand and stand and turn yellow
in the sun, on the green green green
hill where I earned something in work labeled security- this job I can almost touch

that kite that came too close, it would have been a sharp liberty, that toy’s touch
it was too much of a risk for the balloon the liberty head was almost drawing the kite
towards it so I asked the man to let the kite fall into the green
grass of the hillside. When I asked him- his face a red balloon
made me reconsider the yellow
sun. That day I thought about how my silhouette broke the blue sky

open. I was a paid to stand and guard this sky
this horizon of a green silk construction fueled by heated air blown up to touch
in it’s way the hearts of these patriot tourists that shout songs and shoot yellow
fireworks above this green silk disembodied head the kite
threatens the sanctity of this revolutionary head. Supplied by AT & T, this balloon
might fall green into green.

If the sharp point of that child’s toy pierced the green
money colored head of miss liberty I thought that the sky
itself might find something to say to the balloon.
That inflated thing that I had become in my summer job, I felt that I had lost touch
with my father and with the years that he had held his joy in me and in the kite.
That fragile thing that he taught me to loose into the yellow

sun, I went to the man and I saw that child in him turn red and then yellow
From the fury that he felt at this disruption. On the green
hill of our afternoon he folded up his kite
and went back down the hill while I stood with the sky
and we thought about each other what kind of fist might have been enough to touch
the inside of this day, this liberty of my guarding a balloon

for ten dollars an hour. What would it take to break open this balloon
that I lived in? What would it take for me to ask the sun in it’s yellow
kingdom to open my security to a liberty of touch.
On the grass on this lovers hillside at Gasworks on the green
day that this afternoon had become. I thought about the sky
and I wondered why it never rained on me there where the kite

was told to come down, away from the balloon, into the green
arms of the grass that allowed even the yellow coward in me to speak to the sky,
that did not seem to mind that I had lost touch and that I don’t own a kite.