Five Fingered Breathing

How my blood runs through

his veins, not just the angling

of his eyes or an affinity for myopia

but in the way he gasps at night,

asthmatic, yes, but spiraling

down all the permutations

of fear that he can

calculate and hold within;

the possibilities for pain that his

little body covers like an

overhung umbrella.

I taught him to trace

five small fingers with another,

to breathe in and out as his

pointer rises and falls,

but I never taught him

the panic that I bred

within him. I never taught

him how my body hums

tight like a cello string

or that I was born waiting

for the other shoe to drop,

for the punishment to begin.

I never taught him his

fearful inheritance.