week 10 post 2

First Breath Last Breath
Antler
When a baby boy is born
and the midwife
holds him up
as he takes
his first breath,
Place him over
the mother's face
so when the baby exhales
his first breath on Earth
the mother breathes it.
And when the mother dies
her middle-aged son
the baby grew up to be,
by her side
his head next to her head,
Follows her breathing with his breath
as it becomes shorter
and as the dying mother
exhales her last breath
her son inhales it.

The thing I like about this poem is that it wraps up around then and point of the poem becomes very clear. I don’t know if it makes sense but this poem seems very circular. I guess like the circle of life, someone is born and then they die, and it just continues like that. Something that is special to the poem is that the line breaks are very choppy. That might be representative of life because it doesn’t always flow smoothly, but I would think that because the poem has to do with breathing the beats would be the same throughout so that it would mimic a steady breathing. Because the line breaks are done so choppy it makes the poem seem more suspenseful because the reader is waiting for something very surprising to happen. I was a little disappointed to realize that the poem ends with a very obvious ending.