Chasing the wind

I forgot how to breathe

the day the earth cracked again,

and broke.

I held my breath

like it might embrace me back,

but it didn’t.

Air left me—

like a mother turning away,

or the sun setting

on the earth’s frozen gyre.

Since then I've been chasing the wind—

as though my ribs, like sails,

might catch the air,

trying to remember

the moving shape of receiving.

And then it happened—

the wind slipped under my ribs

like a whisper

or a caress

I didn’t know was possible.

I gasped—

not in fear,

but as if something ancient

had returned

to bloom in my breast—

or as though a dragon

had come home to nest.

And then it began—

she, the dragon, spinning

a shimmering orb

woven of breath—

a cascade,

a release,

a womb,

a bell

ringing

in my bones

still.

—Lorena Wolfman (2020, 2025)