by Nick Gisburne
We share a single breather, two of us.
Out there, without it, neither could survive.
Deciding that today he’ll make a fuss,
My father loads a crystal in the drive.
I’ve seen them all a hundred times, or more,
The only way these memories remain,
But this is older, long before the war:
My mother, laughing, running, in the rain.
She hugs her belly. “All of this, for you!”
It must have been the day she took the test.
She weakened, as the son inside her grew.
The crystals, most without her, show the rest.
We share a single breather. So did she,
But two, together, share the pain of three.
