Something of Breathing

Who cares
about your arms,
elbows and knees,
cartilage screaming, worn
down to ghost slivers, lodging
there in your joints? Even
this silence has a hiss to it.
Even the air presses down, soft,
a pillow on your mouth.
Asphyxiation happens slowly,
breath by breath, when you
are alone. Who cares? This
is not about connection.
You are not elastic. You will
take in each swallow of air,
day by day. You will move,
spider-limbed, exoskeleton imagined
in bands. You could make a cage
to keep your wrists, your fingers,
to hold your neck a column, to make
a statue to hold your lungs. You should
make something gold, soft, curved claws
to keep you rigid, so you stand,
naked, and see in the mirror
your form, banded in gold. Special.
Caged. Each rib-breath touching
rib-gold, rib-bars, your breasts
insignificant, your arthropod body
held. Special. The plea in each
tremulous breath. To live. Each breath.
To live some more, perfect. Gilded.