In the
privacy of my masculine living space
I make like
a Greek figure on the border
of a
ancient map blowing out the divine
breath that
raises waves, washes over
islands,
sends shapely craft skidding
across all
the oceans of this flattened world.
Blowing out
and out and out with no thought
for how it
all might end, heedless
of those
other vessels, the thinly walled ones
in my
temples; dreadful how my eyes bulge
from my
whitened face, my toes curl painfully
deep into
the carpet pile as I try
to blow just
a few seconds more, huffing
my way into
the annals of achievement
for longest
continuous exhalation on record
(ha! those
ancient demigods kept none).
A mad
attempt no doubt from an untrained
amateur,
but with my orbs screwed up tight
I try as
hard as I can to feel those ships
moving away
from me, speeded toward
their
foreign ports of call. And surrounded
by my own
small patch of yellowed parchment
I know a
certain kinship with the mighty
wind
machines that gird distant rocky shores.
(Originally appeared in Requiem
Magazine)
