First Breath
I
Remember having gills?
Remember the rush of water flushing
through the slits in your neck
……………………as you swam, open-mouthed,
……………………through the algae plume?
And the slinky feel of protozoa clinging
fearlessly to the razored teeth in your throat,
……………………egging you on—
……………………faster, faster!
Remember the tickle of cilia
on your underbelly as you played
……………………hide-and-seek
……………………among the sea anemones?
Or racing with the shoal—
and the flutter of a thousand silvery fins
……………………as the pack danced to-and-fro
……………………in perfect synchronicity?
And remember, now, the lulling pulse of the salty-sea womb—
its cradle-call from the deep; how you nibbled
…………………….on its soft inner folds
…………………….and drifted contentedly to sleep.
There you floated, impregnated with neither fear nor doubt,
nourished in the knowledge that what lives within is also without:
……………………..that endless transmutation of self and sea,
……………………..the universal soul at once set free!
II
But what of the vortex?
……………………..The purge?
That siphoned the womb of its saline sea?—
A centrifugal force at the foot
……………………..of existence, separating
all that was from all still yet to be?
Oh, how you fought it!—
………………………thrashing about,
………………………alone and afraid, as it
………………………dragged you into its
………………………dark, drain-ed depths,
the saltless sea womb now shriveled,
………………………bereft,
its once-trusted walls clasping around you in a vise-like
grip; you, a fish trapped in a wormhole whose gills no longer flush
with sea life, whose marbled eyes constrict as you’re pushed,
screaming, into a blinding light.
And you must choose now;
you must make that switch: Open
that other space within you, that space
that has been developing for you, unbeknownst to you, in spite of you:
these two sacs,
this delicate membrane,
this point of transference,
like water into wine.
Only water is air and air is blood and blood is food and food is life,
decaying, transforming, liberating life—just
as before, when you had gills, only
a little different—
a displaced molecule
or two.
No big deal. Really.
Water. Air.
Remember?
Breathe.
• • •
Jacqueline Henry is a writer, editor and creative writing instructor. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from:The New York Times, The Southampton Review, Abstract: Contemporary Expressions, Clarion, After the Pause, The Cape Rock, Carbon Culture Review, Euphony, The North Atlantic Review, The Round, Prism, and Writer’s Digest magazine. When not writing she is a volunteer rape crisis counselor and Reiki practitioner. In 2014, she walked six hundred miles across the Camino de Santiago.