The Problem With Oxygen

by Gaetan Sgro
Annals of Internal Medicine

Paris 1945

Good lungs are hard to keep
clean unclogged by tar the dust
stirred by moth's wings
mist that settles on the Seine some September
mornings and with the sunrise slides
along that glassy plane. It is the end of summer
opposite VE Day and he has left on a pass
his recovery unit near the coast
and taken the train to the city where she works
salvaging documents, love letters, maps.
Their day spent ducking the past
at turns effortless as drowning
is paid for in pangs
the way the first deep draught
stings upon breaking the surface
air punishing the chest
with the memory of its absence.
In time echoes of laughter
the clink of glassware
even flashes of warlight between
those banks once indelible
diminish as all things once bright
and elastic. They return to the States
feel the years expand and collapse.
She manages to quit with the first pregnancy
while he contracts a cough that will trail him
across decades. Damage accumulates
the airy lattice thinning
until it cracks and caves
like ash. In the end
the problem with oxygen is reduced to physics
a volume problem
how to compress enough of it
so the tank will last. All I want
he wheezes casting an arm from his bed
is to take my wife to dinner
see our breath freeze as we stop
by the river the stroke of
oars that signal
the dawn calling us back.