GOOD LUNGS
KRISTIN LAFOLLETTE
The first time I truly understood
the rain water smell of wet earth,
it was a cave, the silence interrupted
by the dripping of
the water, the
moisture running from the rocks.
The wide opening into the sun was
a box of light, like looking through
a lens, extending out into
wildflowers
that were children. I saw a path I have
walked and will walk, a place where
I almost stepped into an open pool
of water in the ground—
Consumed—
The way I feel as my hands come
together and the old cells fall to
the floor.
The way I remember my father
in a black suit. The way I remember
a woman with
blue
eyes and a garden tended by her
husband.
The way I remember a girl named
after the way trees bend in the wind,
a film projection of her life,
the stinging of rubbing alcohol as
it is absorbed by small wounds in
the skin.
∘∘∘