I exhale and imagine
my breath scattering the snow
that has been falling
outside my window, steadily,
since morning.
*
It is bad travel weather,
though that doesn’t matter.
For ten months of quarantine,
there has been nowhere
safe to go. So that I’ve stopped
even trying to move.
*
I exhale and imagine
if we could see a coronavirus float
and flurry, land
on an outstretched hand
or tongue like a snowflake.
The models of the virus
online look like that.
*
I imagine if
we could always
see our breath,
the way we do
when it’s frozen,
charging out ahead
and burning back in.
*
Imagine.
*
I am used to the feel of breath,
now, when it’s trapped,
wet, in a cotton face mask.
I used to breathe
without paying such attention.
*
If…
*
I have always been restless
in winter. But I didn’t used to
have to remind myself every day
to take such deep breaths. To count
living and breathing as a success
for the day.