Leveler Poetry Journal
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Stridor

 

It will not be a testament to you

your child’s life expectancy.

How this will will save you

 

his spindly chest inside your robe

on a stoop over Baker

Beach, the sucked space

 

of skin pulled into ribs, counting

the seconds of gap

until the demons release

 

the bark from his lungs, go nose-

diving into the Navy’s bay,

where shiplap, burning

 

men spread with sea lions

and chrome sleep below.

How you will hope

 

for oxygen, his limbs to grow

from barrels, himself to hold

a wheeze-gasping thing

 

offer milk from his cannons, sweep

harm from their eyes like pollen

from a windshield.




Priscilla Wathington