the wind breathes in waves.

it is a mixture of
exhalations
air spent
carelessly
in mid-thoughts and mid-gestures
from uncorked lungs
and far away lives unstoppered:

the first halting cough of an eight year old
trying to hold in his first, "cool" drag.

the smooth whistle spinning through
a chinese girl's hair as she spins
through a mid-air dive, confident as a knife,
slicing miracles.

the third to the last sigh
of a man whose remission proved temporary,
blurring out on waves of morphine.

lives mixed in invisible colors
and dragged and staining
across shadowed landscapes,
nibbled by hungry leaves
and gobbled whole by stranger lungs.

despite an adulterated history,
how the wind always tastes fresh.