Uncatalogued Small Acts Of Despair Poem by Patti Masterman

It really bothers me when someone doesn't conclude their thought,
their eyes following something I can't quite make out yet.
From my vantage point, it's still up there somewhere, over the trees-
or caught up in them- something they deemed it necessary that I should know-

But then they stop, and they close their mouths; all unknowing,
or else in denial, that they left that kite just hanging uselessly
somewhere in the still opaque skies.

Children are pointing somewhere now, as it floats overhead,
an unmanned kite, of home and duration unknown.
The sun reflects mutely off it's bare bones and tensile membranes;
in imagination, an unseated kite can go on flying forever,
but like a blind or unpiloted aircraft, even its seconds
must be numbered.

And the unknown colors and possible direction haunts me,
like a deathbed confession, that never made it out
before the tongue froze forever to the palate.

Somewhere it's burning now, with a low flash of flame,
it's small jettison of fuel only a black smudge, against the horizon-

The treasure is lost; the disclosure never came-
no one was saved.
No one was saved.