Kate Bolton Bonnici //
Inside the room someone breathes
through a machine until at some point
they will be moved to a smaller room
& there will be no breathing machine
& breathing will end in some version
or another. (You get that this is code for
what you don’t know how to say.) Outside
the room, men & women who can breathe
talk & look at phones & there are children
too — pull up your mask — outside the screen,
with stronger breath, their pink alveoli
unoccluded by anything except freeway
proximity — all the way & stay six feet —
& they have been told that someone
inside has trouble breathing. One asks
about the soul & you do not say soul
is code for what we cannot touch
because really what she’s asking is will
a body no longer breathing be buried
in the ground & if it’s buried in the ground
will it be wearing nice clothes. Yes,
you say because you haven’t addressed
alternatives — how do we change code status? —
But what if you want those clothes,
the ones that get buried in the ground
with the person who no longer breathes?
You tell her she will not want them. (Of this,
you are confidently wrong.) But will we get
to be there & when you say yes
through the screen is that the same as yes?
Nearby, breath of song to which the child
turns — FaceTime us from the funeral — & you know
such turn is her code for saying no
matter, I will, through will, find out.
