The poet is like a guerrilla in the last days of war, unsure what side is winning but he endures and continues to imagine the dying breath.

The dying breath as more than victory, more than burlap uniforms under tattered flag, more than an animal's manic pulse, more than marrow floating in a river.

The poet sees past the wrinkled and atrophied down to bone resolve, prays his stories find a home in the silver and starstuff columns of his memories.

He is afraid that his words are just moss on rock, tail feathers floating to earth, his testament caught under boot heel, exposed as talcum.

There is a letter he has yet to write, an apology to father, a condolence to sister, an explanation to brother-man, a final chance to cry unashamed.

This letter does not rest in his bones. It exists where his joints grind, where myths of a free home meet and melt into stillness.

No longer a rushed breath trying to contain the fire of his ribs, but more like the graceful wind of this forest around him, protecting him as if he were its only child.