Exhale
Bubbles float to the surface
Eyelids drag when I blink
The crowd holds its breath?

It’s a common trick
If that
The clock ticks
Diaphragm flat

I want to breathe
But I choke
And the chains
I am a bubble, too

The clock is on my side
The clock is the key
The clock is steady
And I wait

I rise, I buoy slowly
My hair, tentacles
Like a Man o’ War’s
Inadvertently stings me

My heart fights
My pulse races
My lungs burn
The clock, steady

I surge past
Where the water
Meets the sky
And I gasp for August.