ELEGY FOR MY BREATH

When I was younger, I was taught to hold   

my breath while dust devils dove in and out   

of the infield. Close your eyes, someone told   

me, as I turned to watch trash strewn about  

in the beautiful way it does, all weight-  

less like hair blowing slow-mo in the wind,  

the girl always turns knowingly, her fate  

awaits in a Hollywood lens, for Wind-  

in-His-Hair. If you’re not careful, you’ll breathe  

them in, and they’ll become part of you: spirits  

or men in your body. I want to heave—  

just let it all in— or out, breath near its  

breaking height. It was March 2020  

when the earth shook in Utah, and I paused  

for a few years, afraid of the plenty  

airborne droplets and the havoc they caused.  

I thought I’d killed my dad on a trip home,  

just before the country shut down. We’d shared   

a roast mutton sandwich and root beer foam,   

when I learned I’d been exposed—I was scared   

to say the very least, and sorrowful.  

So full of sorry that those days waiting  

passed like lifetimes and lives—my sorrow, full  

of carbon dioxide recreating   

the earth’s atmosphere. We now need house plants,  

as many as we can find, or I move   

to Florida, where even my leather pants  

mold, emitting spores for my lungs to love.