Breath
I’ve done my thirty
minutes around the oval,
my legs and heart
carrying me up the three hills
as best they can, though
one pounds and the other
two ache, and my left
hip as usual calls for its
recuperation on the soft
brown sofa which is
where I am now listening
to the wheezing
from my lungs, the walk
triggering a constriction
of breath, so that
sitting here, I’m struggling
with a heaviness in my
chest and a coughing
that opens or releases
nothing, not even phlegm,
only a renewed sense of
the body’s moody requiem.
My lungs that once
seemed strong as leather,
now as poor and
crepitant as a paper bag
filling with the
hyperventilated breath of someone
trying to alleviate
their heart rate and their panic.
My wheezing will cease
soon, either of its
own accord, or from the
vapours of a puffer
that will restore the
reservoir of good air I need
for easeful breathing—up
until that time
when
some infection will turn each inhalation
and exhalation into
static distortion: my breath
sounding like the
crackling of drinking straws
sucking up dregs, or
like the sounds of children
roughly tearing layers
of foil-wrapping
from their birthday
presents. Or until tomorrow
when exercise and
allergens cause heaviness
and coughing again in my
heart-flanking organs,
the squinching of
breath that only a puffer’s
dose of ventilating
mist, or the proxy pulse
of
passing time will return to a legato progression
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete