Alice Miller
Born Breathing
Born Breathing
Because I have never quite caught the moment when you
stand and breathe on top of a mountain in a country
where you were born, and
because I have never been trapped in an underground
cavern with a single candle and no water, and
because a man I was once in love with just sent me a
photograph from Colorado of a famous man’s baby
booties and his gold death mask,
and because he was so gentle I had to push him away,
and because because means by cause of, and causes
multiply as a matter of course, and because our arguments
come to us like breath,
I am trying to keep the seconds still, in this bed
overlooking a window blasted white by mist
while I look on the dark web for a definition of the
seconds after a wisdomflash, where
you re-see each tip of tree, each gasping leaf, each scrape
of thin snow, when
your naked, foolish self can’t be argued with, and
your death mask is, for that second, wiped clean.