For some, the air finds their lips—
where they don’t expect it:
on the porch step,
exhaling day into dark morning,  
at the sweaty climax 
of sun, when overwhelmed
by some gorgeous landscape vista:
emotion gaining wings. 

My grandfather talked to God

and cried each overlong grace 
as my grandma looked down
at her cooling food.
Some whisper, some scream
to the dead. Others talk to air at night,
when the room bares
roan and piebald hearts. 
 
In any case, it calls to us—
essence of what makes
us be.

Without you,

O₂,
our very cells
grow lonely,
pillow-smother with lack.
 
I’ve had an attack of panic
and the press-and-hush
of my oxygen condensor has filled
its little plastic tube again.
 
When—when—air answers, 
it says little/asks nothing back.