"I think this and the air quivers afraid" by Kimberly F. Lacombe.

You breathe. Anticipation in the air.

Settling in hollows, rail lines and tired minds,

hanging like a crowd of warm ghosts

hiding from the sunlight wherever they can find.

It feels like everything could change, it has

and will, I think this and the air quivers afraid.

The city rose from cannon smoke

a mirage we’re swimming in, an oasis,

broken by rail lines, starved eyes and

smoke again from the gas, gas, tear gas

fired like the city’s exhaling fast, leaving us behind.

The smoke settles on the canals and rivers

and we rest on the banks as the ghosts glide

under the mirage, and we forget with our beers

and wines that if we just reached over, we would

plunge to somewhere colder, somewhere darker.

Kimberly F. Lacombe is a socialist, writer, & unionist living between Gadigal country (Sydney) and Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Become disappointed in me in ways you never thought possible through my twitter (@KimFLacombe).