When asked, it is air we want. Birdsong too, but to admit the latter feels like pushing it so let’s start with breath. When not asked, we raise hands to sky. From the bay windows high above us, members of the homeowners association shake their heads. Our pause confirms what someone was just saying about our idle ways. What on earth are we doing if not climbing? We are even slow in our greetings––total inefficiency! This bracing way of clasping both arms at once as though holding against a tipping ship, holding the gaze for balance as we ask, How are you? And in wonder, it is so good to see you here even if we both know the birds are leaving and here hasn’t been so hot for some time. Perhaps especially because we know this, there is wonder. Here we are!
You! We say, and You! We respond even as each also knows how the overlords are doing something with the air––they learn to parcel this in packaged plans through air-conditioned boards. Yes, they will divide this, too. No, they will not take us while we are still so efficiently removed from our next breaths instead and they call our deaths collateral, shaking heads at our parents and the wayward ways that led to our lazy arms reaching above our dazed faces into the not-yet sun we have the gall to dare to know us well enough to draw from memory our shadows beside where we stand and it will not stay––
but for a moment we are painted silhouettes, mighty against the next hill where we stand with our backs in indolent refusal of the million-dollar views, faces aimed again to the next morning as we mourn the way of knowing that comes with knowing we will never be ready but still, missing birdsong, dare to breathe, believing the next day will come
