sits on a museum shelf in Dearborn, Michigan
captured in a vial, sealed with a paraffin kiss
displayed beside gramophone horns the size
of elephant ears, dimpled glass photography plates
the juddering haunt of incandescent bulbs
laboratory ghosts hovering above this relic
of rarified air – preserved like fireflies in a mason jar
and I wonder at the grand experiment that begins with
a push a slap a gasp a breath
the nascent gulp of air fueling brain and cell, bone
and blood, the rhythmic rise and fall of diaphragm
and discovery
and how it ends the same, these trials and years
in a specimen of breath backlit by tungsten
flame – held, released, and held again –
an artifact of inhalation, exaltation
and all that comes between
Lucinda Trew lives, writes, walks a pair of unruly dogs, and geeks out over science stuff in Charlotte, N.C. Her work has been published in Susurrus Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, The North Carolina Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, storySouth, and elsewhere. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. Her chapbook What Falls to Ground is forthcoming from Charlotte Lit Press.
Appears In
Cagibi Issue 25
