Aping Breath

The gulf demands our attention, closes our eyes, empties our minds

so all we feel is her breath like heads on lover’s chests.  We anticipate

the rock of the ship.  It’s trying to ignore the breath, the life, that causes

motion sickness.  I know this from pregnancy—the only cure is to lie

down and focus on the life inside.  I do this with the sea, the roll of each

wave draws me into the life below.  Watching Lion’s Mane and Tiger Sharks

and Long-armed Octopus, I open my eyes when I’ve seen too much and stare

at the place where the sea and sky folds into itself like so many bolts of blue fabric. 

This is what brings Ahab, Pip and Starbuck together in one zen moment: the perfect

crease of each blue jutting against each other like a chair pulled up to a table.  We know the amorphous expanse of each, so watching the illusion of simplicity, with nothing to distract us, brings thoughts of other realities beneath other surfaces.  The Styrofoam cup

in front of me carries a history, links me to its first handler at the Winn-Dixie plant. 

This baby girl, Emily, and her loving grandparents, Bob and Edith, are linked

to my story as I stare at the bag of cheerios, packed to bribe silence.

Emily is me, babbling, gurgling happily despite the low angle of the morning sun.

I am the toddler yelling “Chase Braden!” to his brother’s friends as he squeals

on his Big Wheels down the street.  I am Brooke, five and practicing ballet as my friends

chase boys.  I am Brooke’s friends, playing with the neighbor baby, practicing for

motherhood; and I am Dakota, beaming at his brother, and bike racing his mom.

A Jumbie-bean pod on the pavement becomes all life and death, Dakota’s front tire

becomes my own, on Becker Street, with a Strawberry Shortcake bike.  Braden stares

in awe at a bird on a wire while I cry, not knowing who to be; the child or the bird.

Edith hums “Frere Jacque” to Emily, not knowing she is also singing  “Braden Mikey”,

Her voice becomes my own.  I am Bob, smoking a pipe and absently stroking dreams

from my hair under the palm frond umbrella at the El Rancho Hotel.  I am Jerry, reading

the Miami-Herald and drinking coffee after a dip in the hot tub.  I am Ramon, talking on

the phone with his girl back home, assuring her tomorrow will come soon; I am Walter,

Sleeping in the middle of the bed in a still dark hotel room, while my wife gently brings

in the morning with coffee and poetry.  All of us breathing on the same morning,

our lungs rolling like waves.  The Bottle-Palm fronds criss-cross in front

of white lattice, showing the way we still echo what’s already there. 

The human desire to mimic and contain lines and colors from nature

rages on—we want to bring the whole world into our

living room.  I want to sleep outside and turn my living room into the whole world.