Rescue Breaths
It takes an hour
to clean my revolver’s
filthy mouth.
When I go for a drive,
the least I can do
is roll down the window
and let curses
come into the car,
maybe give them a chance
to put their lips to my lips
as if we are about to share
one death,
as if we being called to resuscitate
a blue child pulled ut of the public pool
and take turns
giving rescue breaths.
The same air flowing over the car
moves between three sets of lips,
going back and forth,
like a wind created
during a head-on collision.
Greg Jensen has worked with homeless adults living with mental illness and addiction problems for the past 20 years. Winner of the 2014 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize, his work has appeared in december, Crab Creek Review, Bodega, Fugue, and Dunes Review. Greg received his MFA in Poetry from Pacific University.
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