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63 Just Breathing This worldwound body politic quivers with torture—earthshock— (Can you match the arms and legs?) (Can you sew them back together?) (Can you resurrect a country?) And what were you doing across the globe, invading those you did not know who never invaded you? You raged across bones and borders as if collective guilt caught criminals. (What feral law is that?) What were you doing there, just breathing? O breath powerful breath baited with cash without consequence (you thought) to you. Shock by trigger by primers of hate of anonymous enemies whose language you do not speak whose culture you cartoon enemies behind each door enemies who were not enemies till you smashed their light and water crushed them in their homes tormented them. 64 You were aware and stood there by the door kicked in to invade a family. Everybody inside was bleeding. You were breathing. Will this mother’s child have breath if it is born? It is not safe in the womb in a house in a mosque a market a hospital. Let it not be born— world unworthy of a single birth— until the bombing stops. Until it stops and infants nurse at the future. Meanwhile, you and I are standing in the daily dust and rubble, the museum of death and dying, just breathing. ...

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