Outside In

my 
breath this
my breath of
our

not-our
air.

listen
to its silvery hiss
like a gown

*

question

answer

question
 drum-taut diaphragm guardian
 pulse not ever not motionless
answer.

in hold the calculation

but brain pre-empts mind’s free choice

*

animal forms – air-breathing, water-breathing – pendent
from a strand of world

duct the body walls contorts
tract it orients
sealoch where a seal’s meek face
bobs up inland

*

within the safe of lungs
workings
shield and traction blossom out of

*

insects breathe through skin
one toad species through its eyes
the trees just now

wallow puppet limbs
of scintillating green:

    exposed transpiring unretained

    no more rooted in the earth than
    catching
    air

    only net to hold the wind