"Go out for milk," the man's wife tells him,

so he does. On the way home he takes a wrong turn,

finds himself driving out Seven Bridges Road.

Past the coast guard station now, he doesn't stop

or turn around, even though he knows the road dead-ends

at the bay after the last bridge, nor does he think it strange

he can't find his way back to a house he's lived in

for twenty-some years, but instead he thinks,

Look where I am. He begins to notice his own breathing

and tries the in-through-the-nose out-through-the-mouth

method, like Maggie's yoga classes teach her,

but he's not thinking about his wife or home now.

Instead he's thinking, There might be a boat waiting

on the water's edge—then he can go out to the middle

of the bay and really hear the breath that fills his lungs

and enters the blood pumping his heart, and he likes

the feel of full lungs, the feel of his heart relaxed and full—

but somewhere a mobile phone is ringing and the man takes

a sharp breath, the car swerves, he feels a slight squeeze in his chest

as he fumbles for the right button, only to hear

Maggie's static-ridden  voice, "What the hell is taking so long?"

The man stops the car. He tosses the phone

into the wavering dark of the marsh grass.

For now, he sits and breathes and tries to enter

the regular rhythmic expansion of his heart.