The little line for coffee stalled and the whole

Idea of rising early formed a ball

And roiled off the table.  I should have

Visualized this, animated my life and ours

Like bugs on a blank piece of paper skittering

Till they fell off and I found a hotel four

Hours away – same time to fly or drive

Door to door – with oxygen in the lobby.

It’s become harder to breathe with the panic

Afoot, as if the seas burned off and

Sea level cities are now alpine and I’m

Barrel chested from gulping air, nightly

In the dark. The hotel lobby fills in five

Minutes, line out the door. The Baristas

Loll through making change, anesthetized by the rich air.

Lawrence Bridges is best known for work in the film and literary world. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Tampa Review, and Ambit.  He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums (Red Hen Press, 2006), Flip Days (Red Hen Press, 2009) and Brownwood (Tupelo Press, 2016). He created a series of literary documentaries for the National Endowment for the Arts “Big Read” initiative, which includes profiles of Ray Bradbury, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff and Cynthia Ozick. He lives in Los Angeles. You can find him on IG: @larrybridges