Born Breathing

Summary

Because I have never quite caught the moment when you

stand and breathe on top of a mountain in a country where

you were born, and

because I have never been trapped in an underground cavern

with a single candle and no water, and

because a man I was once in love with just sent me a

photograph from Colorado of a famous man's baby booties

and his gold death mask,

and because he was so gentle I had to push him away,

and because because means by cause of, and causes multiply as

a matter of course, and because our arguments come to us like

breath,

I am trying to keep the seconds still, in this bed overlooking a

window blasted white by mist

while I look on the dark web for a definition of the seconds

after a wisdomflash, where

you re-see each tip of tree, each gasping leaf, each scrape of

thin snow, when

your naked, foolish self can't be argued with, and

your death mask is, for that second, wiped clean.