Intercostal

The sneeze was a sudden, violent fault line.

I was just reaching for a shoelace

when the air snapped inside me,

a hot needle stitching the left side shut.

Now I am sitting on this lawn chair,

feeling the white plastic slats bite

into my back like the teeth of a saw.

I am thirty-four and moving like a hinge

that the rain has finally rusted through.

I can feel them now, those curved bones,

holding my breath in a thin, brittle cage.

They aren't as thick as I thought they were.

Just a few narrow rafters trying to keep

the whole ceiling from coming down.