With Each Breath

Walking and swooping and pausing

walking and swooping and pausing.

Swept inward, I find myself

entwined in flowing tendrils,

a blossoming latticework of nerves.

I feel myself floating upward, like an aquatic weed,

flowing and swooping and pausing.

My lips, tongue, and palate shape wordless stories,

seeds carried on the breath,

where inward and outward mingle inseparably.

Flowering and swooping and pausing—

swept inward, I find myself.

My fingers, my palms, open,

blooming like sea anemones,

slowly tracing the minute arcs

in the wake of each breath, air and water,

not lost to the immensity of wind, ocean,

in which I float, swoop, and pause.

—Lorena Wolfman (2020, 2025)