What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,
modest and willing, and in our places?
Mary Oliver


First breath
It's snowing
Crystalline rain before
sunrise

I dreamt of dead cats
Curled in a plastic bag
Rescued from a high tide
A blue tug without an
anchor

Exhale

At school
She is crying
Bruised from the outside in
She will not speak
I provide the words
Shaking her head yes then
no
I realize
"This is not her place"
I call her mother who wants
to understand but cannot
"We love your daughter,"
I tell her,
"She is so talented and kind.
The world lives inside her
pencil,
but she does not want
to be here. Take her home," I say
again and again
"Then let her choose where
she'd like to go to
school."

Inhale, second breath

At lunch, at the park
two sisters, twins,
throw elbows then fists
They fall to the ground and I
must call their mother, a
fertility doctor
She says, "I counsel women against
having twins. They tell me
it's so much more efficient and I
tell them, it's so much more
painful."

She breathes tears into the phone
She says, "More and more they
are turning to physical retaliation,
yet
every night they sneak out of
their beds to sleep
curled up with each other."

Exhale.

5 minutes before the
kids go home
and a knock falls timidly
upon the door
It is the younger sister
of one of my students
She overslept the
Happy Valentine's Day
she'd planned

She asks, "May I please sing to my sister?"
And her little body,
dressed in purple and orange,
like candy against her dark, Indian
skin, bounces
to the front of the room.

"I love you very much, sissy,
And I will sing you telegram song..."

We all hold our breath
The office staff crowds in
the doorway
They have all helped her
practice in the hall,
encouraged her with deep sighs
of "ooohhh" and "ahhhhh"

She draws in air and floats
this song
I love you very much
Dear sister for you I care
You are so beautiful
I really love your hair

And we all cheer, tears
welling like pools of
breath
on a frozen morning

Inhale
I breathe in triplicate

We walk the ridge
this evening
The skies are clear and
indigo, a
slanting pink
curls against the mountains

The dog wags his tail as
he scents his way home
out past the park
above the hospital where
every day children survive
cancer and birth
defects
and choices they did
not make

In between the spaces
of my breathing
I question my convictions, this,
I think,
is not the place I
thought I'd be
yet here I am
strung between breaths
of filament and fiber
stretched between ages of
what lives behind us and
what dreams beyond...
willing and modest, a boat
without an anchor,
the snow before the sun.