Crystal Wilkinson is the author of The Birds of Opulence; Water Street; and Blackberries, Blackberries, and an Associate Professor of English in the Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Kentucky. At a time that is punctuated by the loss of breath—when we are increasingly gripped by the profound understanding that the right to breathe is the right to life—this essay from Crystal contemplates the intimacy of breathing as she considers how we live, die, and love.

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