David Sapp
Breath
I marvel at each arrival
And release – each delectable feast
For breast my breath a martyrdom
A small miracle on each occasion
More astonishing than water into wine
Transubstantiation of body and blood
Or strolling over the Sea of Galilee
Is this breath this pastoral zephyr
The redolence of turned Ohio soil
In the spring any different than
The city’s breeze cheek pressed to concrete
I can’t breathe beneath the cop’s knee
The stale antediluvian air of the Old World
Or the tragic paleolithic dust of Africa
Wretched boats adrift on the Mediterranean
The breathless pressed and smothering?
Sometimes this breath is a fierce wind
Ragged gusts tearing at edges
Rarely a meek summer whisper
A balmy lulling to stupor rarely
The shallow rhythmic breath of monks
Occasionally when stars and planets
Align in a peculiar symmetry
Legs obligingly spread
All is flushed moist and pouting
There’s a rapid oblivious panting
An allegrissimo of huffing and puffing
Breathy ecstasy on the lips
Anymore my breath is more apt
To be a labored reluctant wheezing
A desperate gasping beneath the surface
A river baptism gone awry
The aim of enthusiastic evangelists
Though I refuse asphyxiating propagandas
My breath never a quota for redemption
