Edison’s last breath is in a jar in Michigan
Caught by his son as he died.
Where will my last breath have been by the time it travels through me?
Will it have been spit it the gutter of Mumbai?
Coughed by a panting Senator?
Was it a small sigh at a child’s amazement of a world just opening in his eye?
Will it have travel to space and back?
Was it farted into an airplane seat
Or laughed with a bit of spittle at some barmaids’ misfortune?
This air, this stuff, that expands and contracts us,
the universe even
doesn’t get the credit the heart does.
This invisible life
a language that travels well untranslated
by the heart or mind.
I know you by our breathes
shared exhalations, bits of us.
Air opens us- all of us- to living
from the Yogi to the thief.
Edison who breathed caught light into a jar
a thing unseen until then
now shines breath back at me from this screen
from all screens.
A chain–un broken
passed between us
exhaled into forever’s jar – our breathes