The Amazon is often referred to as the planet’s lungs…

—CNN, 2019

This morning the sun grows from the ground.

The golden marmoset’s tangerine back is a first fire.

Blue to orange to black: sky shifts, the jaguar and capybara stand still.

They call me mother. I call for them to come home.

But home is a white hot winter, scratching snow from my bones. 

What kind of mother am I?

I am bearing black broken death from the belly of my soil.

I am supposed to gestate sunlight. 

I am supposed to breathe life into what I’ve carried.

But I’ve been busy breathing for you.

And I am still breathing for you. 

Now trees are forgetting how to stand and I’m scared.

They’ve always known.

They’ve always grown.

Now you are beginning to notice because you feel it, too.

There’s a fire burning at the bottom of our lungs.

In. I breathe for you. Out. I breathe for you.

You call me mother. 

What kind of children are you?

My body you call home will soon start to turn on you.

A thick charcoal sky weighs down on my chest. 

Yet: In. I still breathe for you. Out. I still breathe for you.