Sin, forgiveness: Byron named the bridge between

Ponte dei Sospiri for the watery reprieve

before the blade. Resignation, exasperation,

we sigh to slow the heart,

to scour the tiniest alveoli, and unbind the deep.

A sigh is meaning-full, like an ocean breeze

thick with salt. Nothing to be done, nowhere to go.

Inhale, exhale. Infants sigh in a loop,

a breath allemande left. Your sigh’s

comma-shaped, an air mustache, curling at its tips.

What you wanted to say, would have, should have.

The dog collapses on the floor, skin like a dropped rope.

The terrible happens, no, worse…

We sigh alone in a room, parenthetically.

The milky objections of ghosts.