Mylar/Helium - Edit2

[Achebe]

Mylar/Helium


Blue five-pointed shiny star. ....absent an article, this sounds like the poem is addressed to the balloon
birthday helium balloon
wrinkled, half-inflated
crosses six busy freeway lanes
low, cat-played 
by unsettled crosswinds.

Mylar nearly unbiodegradable
can last forever;
helium, like hydrogen
but less so, manages.....Helium is the flesh but helium doesn't combust, is a noble has, is not radioactive, is what hydrogen turns to during fusion...so the opposite of flesh in fact
escape from all confinements. .....The subtle allusion to liquid helium's superfluidity is clever 

As between flesh and spirit
material and meme
which is Mylar and which helium?
Flesh escapes, evanesces,
recycles after giving life
its temporary and declining lift ..... looks like a half finished sentence? The 'but' in the next line doesn't relate to this
but meme and spirit
though they rest and tatter
seeming empty or forgotten
nonetheless endure. ....nice ending. I like the irregular meter used in the poem. 

The balloon's shell as spirit and helium as the body is an inversion of what one might expect and to me, is not entirely satisfactory
But otherwise nice one