Fuddled Wraith

Pibal sans theodolite,

Trial balloon with nothing

More impressive to follow,

Red dot floating through the clouds

And away, not to return

Here today or any today—

Robinson, fiction theist

Of some genius, once called it

Human self, that fuddled wraith.

We don’t know. Could be the self.

That is what it calls itself.

Certainly, it’s uncertain.

It floats up under other

Forces and oddly bobbles

Off in wind and gravity.

It has to land somewhere, but

It’s rare to see a landing,

Not even as a torn shred

On a branch or a power line,

And it always vanishes

From the scene in which it was

Released, an egg, globe, human

Head-shaped envelope of gas

Within gasses, dot of red.