The world enters
us as breath. We
return to it itself
as breath.
—Joseph Hutchison, “Comfort Food: Breath”
And so today, on a day
when I feel quite sure
I can’t give you anything,
not anything that really matters,
I give you my breath.
It’s more conceptual
than actual, perhaps,
though scientists say
that the molecules we breathe
have been redistributed
in our atmosphere
for a century or two.
I decide to breathe as if.
As if with each breath,
I connect to you. As if
with each breath, we
become just a little
more each other
one molecule at a time.