Beneath even draft

Call it raw--as close to live as you get--

Comme un souffle

Comme un souffle, my dreams
one long exhalation that
momentarily empties me
and fills me with the vastness
of relief and for a moment hope
until the next breath.

And my hopes, comme un souffle,
last a moment, the time it takes
to think them and pass away
and so I dare not hope for me
and hesitate on the threshold of hope
for another whom I love.

Comme un souffle, la vie,
le jour, et puis? As fragile
as the French from which flows
the thought, we find at the end
we have not lived but only
comme un souffle, breathed and been.

[081110]