" Breath "
"It's fun to struggle. We're born to it."
Tony Kushner
Her breath failed as you were finding yours.
How she played the oboe: that sad sad sound.
Cancer robbed her of breath; in the score,
the desolate calls of migrating birds
over the Bronx meadowlands. Half-submerged,
a tire necklaced in ice; an elegy for her:
child of the Depression, womb of your soul.
A stiletto-eyed falcon rides the thermals above
big, splashy, juicy Gotham; yellow cabs bucket
over uneven asphalt; a kid manhandles a rack
of Armani suits in the Garment District.
Backstage at "Angels," the actor who plays
Roy Cohn fills his lungs with Broadway air,
the fetid stink of hair spray and sweat.
He stutter-steps in his hospital gown,
ass flapping, ready to play his death scene.
An oboe sounds.
© 2005 Christopher T. George
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