Inspiratory System

It breathed a thought into my ear.

Inward a spire was built sharply,

Silver like glass and vertigo fear and

Smoke, cold smoke, twisting like liquid.

A whisper was all that was needed,

Barely a thread of the shadow of the spirit

Or soul of the wind, and I heeded.

I can't see the surface below, but I fear it.

It is chasing me, and I stand still.

Lying on empty, resting but not,

What is this lack of earth I feel?

Oblivion. It is my mind, it is thought.

Holding together the fragile fiber

Of pretend universes falling

Into the simulacrum of Tiber.

Half-made, half-extreme, fully my beloved children:

Dying in life because never living

They are.

Lost before found or born.

Far.

It is unknown. And more familiar to me

Than the skin that has enfolded me

In its warm embrace, not roomy

And not snug until after meals;

But no matter, this.

It is It, is all. The soul has undrawn pages

At the back of its atlas.

It is enough to feel the wind.