Words of The Lamb magazine

All day long it’s in my chest,
lodged like a prodigal breath,

and no amount of hacking
will let it taste freedom.

The clouds have passed, but ice
still litters the sidewalk, water

buries the memory of street,
mud thickens in my throat.

I am tired of writing about storms,
the phlegm and the hail, the limbo

of every step on the godforsaken road
to somewhere beyond the eye’s reach.

Give me dry feet and open windows,
a lungful of warm summer breeze.

Let rain be only in the back of my throat,
its drumbeat on my hollow heart.

Give me a mouth that stretches wide
to exhale its song to the endless sky.