Ars Poetica, with Breath

When you open your mouth
how do you trust
the air you keep—

breath and word,
in a foggy syllable of you
released into a new spire—

will be what you make,
what you plume
into a swirl of change

and current, the thrash
of the world outside
and in which you jostle,

approximate living,
trust in gravity, a world
you think you know?