Allow me to just run, no tricks.
We’ll see then if I have lungs
to withstand this air.

Because aren’t faces temples of sand
capable of melting in wind?

Still, when I was born, I saw
blue curtains gently shift
from the window my daughter
lifted open beside my bed,
to let it in, last, that air.

What can be done?
What do each of us really have?
Is it really just a handful
of blank photographs that
crimple in the hands like
a family of tired leaves?

From outside I can pretend
to understand how it might
come to nothing, a frozen block
of water being that metaphor
for numbness or indifference to
inexplicable flow, but inside
there is too much. Heat