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Heft
by Derek Mong
1.
This breath, however
beautiful
it appears
when released
underwater—
the bubbles
like a burst of pearls
rising—
or,
even conversely, when
gloomy—
as these blue plumes
of tobacco
stream from my nose,
is
still
in the end, a merely
sufficient
metaphor for the soul.
True: my breath is the
one weight
I carry when naked.
True: the first day it
sails from my lungs
without returning
my body will draw in its
shutters
and die—
but still there are
nights
where it lingers
near my collar
and the bell-ringer
whispers God bless
you
as I walk by—
and the bell clapper
taps
like an ice pick
at my chest.
2.
We slept with palms flat
on our sternums, and
each breath
released like a gas-
lamp trying to light.
It was afternoon, and
then
it was evening.
After you went home
I breathed cigarette
smoke in-
to plastic baggies
which I slid under
our sheets. When I woke,
you fit
inside both my hands.
3.
Massachusetts, 1907
Though his patients died
daily, the physician
could do nothing; it was
a time of epidemic, when
one turns to God for
salvation or blame. The
physician could do
neither, but instead
built a scale into the
springs of a bed. There
was an old woman, one of
his patients, whom he
knew would die by the
end of the week. With
the help of a nurse, he
hoisted her onto this
mattress, and together
they watched the old
woman die. When she
finally stopped
breathing, they recorded
the scale’s gentle up
tick: two ounces, or the
weight of one human
thumb. This, they
concluded, was also the
weight of the soul.
Sometimes though I like
to imagine that he and
the nurse were also
lovers, and one night
they crawl onto the
mattress themselves. I
imagine the physician,
free now from his
patients, watching the
scale’s unsteady hand. I
imagine it reminds him,
in pure ounces, of all
that he’s lost.
4. Hadrian’s Epitaph
Little naked soul, nomad
with no
footpath—
you are both my body’s
air
and armor.
To what realm do you now
go, little
sallow,
Sulking soul, no longer
accustomed
to our joking?
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