when the air was sick

I. Three generations ago, dust filled this industrial valley. Carcinogens laced the air and muddied the rivers and layered the land resulting in a lineage of soot lined lungs and inflamed guts. When the air was sick, the sky stayed dark in mourning.

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II. Outside a coffee shop, a middle-aged man took off his mask to sip a latte and enjoy an overcast afternoon. A woman walked out of the shop next door and lit a cigarette, igniting the man in shockingly hostile rage. He was beside himself, “How dare you? What gives you the right? If I see you here again, I will drag you out by your feet.” The air is ill again, and grief has grown militant.

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III. Pleasantries rarely include the weather anymore. Emails sign off, “stay healthy, stay safe.”

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IV. Littered masks look like lingerie, so I shift my gaze to respect the privacy of where a mouth once met fabric. Amplified now in the intimacy of two breaths that touch, sharing air feels sinful. I find myself jealous of gluttonous smokestacks and fog that sits over the river in the coolness of a morning and steam that escapes through vents after the rain and anything that expels breath so freely. The space I fill is no longer confined to my body, but all the traces of myself: in the distance an exhale travels or the dead skin cells and lost hair I have left behind.

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V. To gather the remnants of myself would be impossible, but to what degree am I responsible for my residue? How much of myself becomes detached each time I pass through a door and sit at a table and open a book and turn the pages? My ancestors shoveled coal and inhaled silica dust, but the affliction of their respiration was passive. Now the air is sick, but there is no safe space for lamentation.