We must compensate for loss of airway

warming they say/ protect the airway/ but I’m not here to damage it/ or blemish any other way/ as dead space fills with this free grace/ my patient one you know/ I have been set to check/ your own expiratory efforts/ overriding them/ for your own good/ for now/ you know this breath is love/ or will do once you’re surfaced

Protecting you for life’s best moments

this is the covenant given unto us/ every second I sink oxygen/ into you under pressure/ & resurface CO2/ see me as/ an air miner of the alveoli/ hear the velar click that links/ living & not/ I will never stop/ breathing for you now/ & here in this oh too tensile minor moment/ it is always now

Ellen Dillon is a writer and teacher from Limerick, Ireland. She has written Morsel May Sleep: Poems From Mallarmé’s Classroom (Sublunary Editions), Heave (Smithereens Press), Sonnets to Malkmus (Sad Press), Excavate (Poems after Pasolini) (Oystercatcher Press) and Achatina, achatina! (SoundEye Press). She works as a secondary school French and English teacher in rural Co. Limerick.

SPOT IMAGE CREATED BY WARINGA HUNJA

HMS is an arts & culture nonprofit (Hypertext Magazine & Studio) with two programs: HMS empowers adults by teaching creative writing techniques; HMS’ independent press amplifies emerging and established writers’ work by giving their words a visible home. Buy a lit journal (or two) in our online store and/or consider donating.