The Breathing Kit

Douglas Bader had something like it,
dangling insouciant from his ear
as he swung himself into his Spitfire,
ready to hand Jerry a pasting
over Folkestone. Jacques Cousteau’s 
fed the bubble-snake that trailed him, 
twisting through coral cities 
in the monochrome deep. Mine 
was a Man in the Iron Mask
rigmarole, black rubber fumbling
around my mouth, the puff-puff 
of the bulb as feeble as a canary’s
warning, as it squeezed the coal-tar
up to my caved-in lungs. The curtains
in my parents’ room sucked in
the midday light and eased it out
like sails in a freshening breeze,
me slumped on plumped-up pillows,
secure in the steel embrace
of my condition, a wheezing 
Bond villain, perfecting his designs 
on the free world down beyond 
the first impossible stair.