Denise

Matt Willey, artist I breathe in my children’s health. I breathe out the window they broke and the shards of glass clinging to the sill. I breathe in my father’s memory. I breathe out the illness and the pain of his final days. I breathe in the easy way Alex and I still have with each other. I breathe out his leaving for Sudan and the call from the bank regarding an outstanding $900 lien on the house that is hampering my refinance. I breathe in my friends – their beauty, strength and kindness. I breathe out their own tough spots – sorrows for friends in Haiti, ongoing relationship woes, illness. I breathe in my neighbor’s pregnant belly and look every hour to see if the car is still there or has taken off for the hospital. I breathe out my other neighbor who moved in last fall, has never said hello and appears to be remodeling with a resale in mind. I breathe in the power of standing on the end of the diving board and the glee of jumping. I breathe out the trepidation it took to get up there. I breathe in Haiti – its beauty and strength. I breathe out Haiti – its suffering and injustice. I breathe in my home’s safety, the warmth and solid ground it provides. I breathe out the things that are broken, worn and in need of repair. I breathe in C.’s hands on my back, his breath on my hair, a knee just there. I breathe out the complications that comes with “mature” relationships, things that didn’t apply at 20: – children, bodily aches, troves of past lovers, aging parents. I breathe in J.D. Salinger and Howard Zinn. I breathe out the State of the Union and Ben Bernanke. I breathe in gardening catalogs and the dream of soil under the snow. I breathe out ice, shovels and tired, brown snow. I breathe in my dog and her old brown head – 14 years of closing those sweet eyes. I breathe out her $75/bag dog food and the container of Rimadyl she ate last month. I breathe in David Byrne, Walker Evans and Martha Graham. I breathe out Lady Gaga and Diesel’s current ads and the Super Bowl. ***** And then: I breathe in me . All of me. Shaky scared rambling swaying me. Kind-hearted, brave, compassionate me. Deeply, through my nostrils, just like my yoga teachers have reminded me, I breathe. It is all breath. From the first one I took 44 years ago to the last I’ll take – today, tomorrow, in the future. Like Salinger. Like Zinn. Like a child trapped under the rubble in Port au Prince or Mrs. Schwartz on the 6th floor of the hospital two miles from here. Breathing ends. Not easily. Not quickly. I watched my father’s dwindle and grow creeky, but it didn’t stop suddenly. Breath is intent – mesmerized with itself. It continues until there is nothing more for it to feed on. Until all of the music for the dance of in and out has fallen silent.