Stolen Breath Rachel Plotnick

Stolen Breath by Rachel Plotnick

Your figure slips over me in bed, cream hands pulling at my quilt, the touch of feathery fingers.

So much of you is in me; I feel you when I breathe like a mint rolling down the back of my throat.

Mothers and daughters know how to dip into each other so when you kiss my forehead we orbit space and tumble in and out of secrets with silent understanding.

Sweet dreams,myp ri n cess

Your words knock at me now like a fist pressed into my ribs, now they strike, & then fade, forgetting how to exhale, then boiling over the surface to hammer at my breath all over again.

Who knew a day later the car would collapse two blocks

from out house.I don't think about you, flying, wailing into infinity's hands and through the windshield, or how your fragile frame crumpled in that fatal moment, a torn kite

brace. scrambling against gravity's emI wonder instead

Did you think of me as you clutched onto broken air? Did I extinguish with you, mother & daughter failing, falling together? Can we breathe still, feel still, in

one space?

I meld into the weight of my bed now & sink deeper to crawl back into your shadow.

Night sweats smell of your perfume.