Breath

by Erich von Hungen

​

The ocean's breath

of fish and kelp,

of iodine and submerged, drowning green

upon the grove's wet mouth

of eucalyptus pods,

of scaling bark and long, thin leaves,

upon the street's lips

of garlic, onions frying, peppers and cut grass,

back and forth,

the ocean's ghost exhalations,

across the wider paved ways,

shot out like arrows,

those avenues

of fumes,

of puffing cars, trucks, buses,

of gasping bicyclers too,

came slow,

then panting.

​

The ocean's breath,

out, along,

up from the ground

where it was kicked by runners and pedestrians too,

was spread out,

out along the park's dark earth

up to the distant, glass-glazed building tops.

​

The ocean's breath, fast finally,

panting over,

possessing,

marveling at and mauling every single lump of anything.

That breath scaling,

covering.

Its moist whispers

in the hair of everything.

Its eagerness

of submerged drowning green

everywhere, everywhere.

And we

are as full of knowing it

and feeling it

as the other fish are

in their deeper wet.