The Enemy The Wind — by Thomas Lux

Hand over hand and over the backs
of some humans it comes

as it does now, from the south, south-
east. It comes, beginning nowhere

and hauling all the expelled
breaths of millions, from nowhere,

a foot or a thousand feet above
the oceans, carrying and not

caring. It comes — an enormous zero
that encircles whatever objects

it whirls around. It's this wind
that touches me here and maybe

again some endless miles north,
or west, or . . . In the back

of my eye it's always there
dividing whatever leaf from whatever

tree — dull, unrelenting, dumb.
And also its sour taste rattling

across my tongue . . . . O immortal
and awful marriage between velvet

between velvet pliers and a velvet
noose: the wind, the enemy.