Fish Man Air

The opening two lines of "Ghost of a Chance" are set off in a stanza.

You see a man
trying to think.

The poem urges the granting of breathing space but observes

the old consolations
will get him at last
like a fish
half-dead from flopping
and almost crawling
across the shingle,
almost breathing
the raw, agonizing
air
till a wave
pulls it back blind into the triumphant
sea.

Adrienne Rich
Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law

Somehow the gender of the subject matters. And perhaps more so the solitary nature of the endeavour. Regardless, after reading the poem you are more aware of your lungs.

And so for day 1407
20.10.2010