Drug-Free Day
A woman from the hospital
brought in two lungs-
one pink and healthy,
one blackened and shriveled, an ironic bezoar-
and showed a score of grade-schoolers
how to reanimate them at will
with the push of a pedal.
She spoke of mortality in terms of
cigarette smoke
and they listened with morbid curiosity.
When it came to be their turn,
a score of grade-schoolers
pulled latex gloves over their own life-filled fingers,
one by one, approached the displaced organs
and unflinching, pedaled bursts
of room-temperature air,
inflating, deflating,
in grim determination to make them breathe again.
