The poem
Your lungs fill & spread themselves, wings of pink blood, and your bones empty themselves and become hollow. When you breathe in you'll lift like a balloon and your heart is light too & huge, beating with pure joy, pure helium. The sun's white winds blow through you, there's nothing above you, you see the earth now as an oval jewel, radiant & seablue with love. It's only in dreams you can do this. Waking, your heart is a shaken fist, a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in; the sun's a hot copper weight pressing straight down on the think pink rind of your skull. It's always the moment just before gunshot. You try & try to rise but you cannot.