death doesn’t have to be permanent to be
perfect, is what I say after my every death

the absence of thought, the soft dangling
of breath mid-throat. the ephemeral rest

of the restless heart, the naught behind
unseeing eyelids. when the alveoli resurface

from aurora borealis, inhalation becomes
explosion, oxygen burns, churns, turns

tissues into a wildfire and bones into
words of praising gods. streams run a hard

bargain to return, forerun an ending
before the fall, perception is paid in

respiration and aspiration, and I never
hesitated to offer both, offer everything

to become the pause between breaths, the black
dots of loose ends, the evergreen knot between

life and the mind, oh the mind, a shine,
a shrine, a thin red line that springs into

action, for the very first time, again
and again