blood pressure

sitting at the subway stop
waiting to go home
I inhale
deeply
watching the fake fur collar
of my coat
rise and fall each time
my chest
expands and contracts

and I'm thinking about
how much
harder
it is to feel that rise and fall
when your chest is
on top of mine
how I take that breathing for granted
when it is through your mouth

I am more acutely aware
of the limbs that still
feel
your touch

the hips that have settled against yours
the lips that you carefully traced
even as I whispered endless
nonsense
afraid that if I stopped talking
we might lose each other
to sleep

the fingers that you held
beside me
underneath me
so that I could feel the arch
in my own back
where you traced the outline
of the tree of life
at my waist
carved karma over the
characters in its trunk

and I must have been real good
last lifetime
to walk with the memory of your
fingertips travelling my spine

my waist feels more
defined
remembering how small it felt
in your hands

and don't tell me that fingernails and hair
are dead cells
because they still feel
where they left marks in your shoulders
where they draped like velvet curtains
over your chest
while we slept
so that I could remember you
even in slumber

still waiting for the T
minus 30 degrees from
the 70 of last week's November
heat wave
I breathe as deep as I can
my coat tight as a blood pressure cuff
storing as much oxygen
in my veins as possible
to hold me until I
get home and

so I can breathe through you
again