"Breath" by Lucy Shaw

When, in the cavern darkness, the child

first opened his mouth (even before

his eyes widened to see the supple world

his lungs had breathed into being).

could he have known that breathing

trumps seeing? Did he love the way air sighs

as it brushes in and out through flesh

to sustain the tiny heart’s iambic beating,

tramping the crossroads of the brain

like donkey tracks, the blood dazzling and

invisible, the corpuscles skittering to the earlobes

and toenails? Did he have any idea it

would take all his breath to speak in stories

that would change the world?