iron lung

by Benjamin WC Rosser

My window shut,

blocking Summer’s fierce gaze

and brown haze from distant flaming timbers.

One machine cools the room,

then my cats and I may nap.

Another, like a Vegas magician,

pulls gallons of water

from the air we breathe.

My window shut,

glazed by Winter’s cruel lick, 

outside sheets of ice and broken branches.

Furnace air and a space heater

blanket us with dry heat.

Eyes itch, hands and heels crack,

another device weaves soothing water

into the air we breathe.

I met a man, years ago,

who lived inside an iron lung.

It did the work of breathing for him.

His hapless head stuck out one end

of what seemed a metal casket on wheels.

With cheeky laughter, he read everything

and used his mouth to write.

I crack open my window.

Benjamin WC Rosser is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Saskatchewan where his areas of research and teaching were, respectively, cell biology and human anatomy. His poetry has been published in Consilience Journal (2022) and London Grip (2022, 2023). He currently resides retired in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife Corinne and children Isabel and Oliver.