Mūla Bandha hula hips
Breath held count 
Thirteen-year-old daughter
Drive to Ponchatoula 
Sushi lunch chop sticks, punctured seaweed wrap 
She reforms the rice and snow-crab
Into the shape of a heart on her plate
Tells dad about what is going on in her life 
Release, exhalation into sun salutation 
Shoulder blades cut the world back 
Sternum impudent 
Hastas boom sign language to the sky 
Meld a nest at breast bone 
In the willow-leafed shutter cage of ribs beneath 
Bristling breath in an ancient language 
Caminando, caminando 
Costa Rican shoreline drumbeat 
Swim down Atlantic current, Californian sun 
Salmon pink sand grit water color to canvas
Howling lunar navigation painted light 
Flared nostrils breathing goddess dance
Sand dune grass blades medicine woman baptism 
Dive for the crippled starfish with broken fingers
Watch tides clock as digits grow back 
In an ocean bubbling loving forgiveness 
To be a person,
Painted face and one-step hair 
Plank into the quiet darkness of infinity 
Wish of how the world could be 
Classrooms of kids stark-chained hearts 
Steel-bullet resilience compassion 
Classrooms of adults raised female hands
Eye contact of beaded empathy 
Honey drip ink mandala painted on a flint creek trailhead 
Quiet inside the pitch-black vision room 
Ebullient kernels of courage in knocked-over crayon boxes 
She speaks flame-flicker tongue lighting way in quiet doubt of
self
In the forest fire we are all in with the cool water of reminding
us to breathe 
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