If You Cannot Breathe Deeply
Your lungs are bigger than you know,
it’s just they’re cluttered. Anger rusts
in tar-soaked tissue, self-doubts grow
in sorry clumps amongst the dust
that age has made. Don’t worry! We
have skin that slits, a ribcage that
can open; we’re designed to be
unzipped, unpacked, our lungs slapped flat
on slabs, a grizzly blockage picked
precisely from the spongy flesh
of each pink lobe before we’re stitched
and born again, unsilted, fresh.
Alternatively, you could do
some yoga. Purely up to you.
Nina Parmenter
If you have any thoughts on this poem, Nina
Parmenter would
be pleased to hear them.