My breath may be the same
as an unnamed truck farmer’s,
or what de Tocqueville took in.

and, when I walk my little dog
around the block, I embody,
like you, the many that made me.

But in the lamp-lit evening
at my desk, it sometimes seems
as if I’m alone with my writing—

maybe about my favorite slate blue
and lavender car on the Whip, one
of the kiddie rides at the beach, and

that instant when the car swerved,
fast, around the bend and my head
canted back and I began to laugh

or reliving, in words, the luxury,
of riding high on the cream-colored
mare on the merry-go-round.

While I never wondered
about the countless creators
of carousels or carnival rides,

their breath is mine and the same
as the little girl who laughed,
and of so many friendly strangers.

Yet I’m also the old tree, the one
cut into planks for the boardwalk
on which all sorts of strangers tread.

Plus I contain each grain of sand
and the entire beach, thick-skinned
seashells, especially those broken;

beach stones with their inborn
silences and sand crabs that burrow
their bodies in the freckled strand.

I marvel at every detail of the wider
world and, like you, dear Whitman,
I carry within me its manyness.