Aspiration

Crowned
a week before
Easter.
It is spring.
The spirit
might have whispered
in your ear,
as with Mary;
the virus
could have entered
though the eye,
through other openings.

Your uvula once pink
and light as paperwhites,
as cloudless sulfur—
tightening in flame
the world ablaze.

Your throat
a ghost ship
docked dry
before floating
a forty day
quarantine
on the long tail
into the nebula
of lungs,
or sponge
turned to coral.

The bronchi,
a tree inverted,
braying as you
take root
in pluvial waters
rising, air hungry
alveoli.

Spikes on the cross
atop the monde
on a diadem.
It is spring—hail,
the rain lands heavy
everywhere.
The world inside.
Will you drown
while waiting to fly
to save time,
another life
to aspire to something?
Gazing skyward from bed,
connected and vented—
instead you take
another breath.

 

 

Image: “Crowned Virgin” by Lawrence OP, licensed under CC 2.0.

Allison A. deFreese
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