Breathing You
by Barbara McGaw

Morning sun
slips westward
climbs
trunks
of waking trees
walks
in bounding strides
over canopied leaves
onto the grass
dripping dew
and into my window
under my eyelids
closed in sleep
You are gone
apart from me
separate
into your world
but you linger in pillows
smelling of your hair
I breathe
you into me
in deep drowning drafts
remembering
yesterday's tears
and fears so sharp
my blood racing
in my ears
leave me never


Mother's Veins

on the backs
   of my hands
      veins
         work
            their way
    (like cracks in glass)
cutting north
       then east
     coursing silent red
          beneath
     my skin

i see
     Mother’s veins
          (deep indigo rivers)
       running
up forearms
      forging channels
                charting inheritance
           i know
      what the drip
of time
     will carve

my veins
  will broaden
        (like streams in spring)
  claiming
        new territories
          moving
         over wrists
         bulging boundaries
    filling the heart     
until i hear 
          in the anvil
    of my ear        
         the rush of
            subcutaneous seas


Waiting Room

sitting
in a waiting room
reading a novel
like I lived it
stuck, but in motion
leg a-jiggle
third eye panning
zoom angle down
and a piercing elation
pushes me
to the edges of my skin
the last frontiers
of blood and bone
people
surround me
light floods
through the blinds
why the shine
on their noses
lips pressed in a line
they're bellied out
in chairs
ankles correctly crossed
shutdown
where is
the candescence
they're candles snuffed
and smoking
afraid to rush the pulse
why do I feel
this rapture
i'm oxygen rich
a stranger
fueled to ride