After Oppen

the world keeps pretending it’s solid
but i know better.
i’ve watched a coffee cup twitch
like it remembered every tremor
i ever tried to bury.

call it a draft, sure.
i’ve blamed stranger things
for the way my body shivers
when no one’s watching.
old habits. old ghosts.
whatever.

a streetlamp burns a hole in the dark
& suddenly i’m back to believing
light has teeth.
i stare anyway.
history trained me to look
even when looking feels like licking a socket.

war always feels far
until it crawls through the TV
& sits down at the kitchen table,
turns the forks into witnesses.
i tell myself distance is mercy
the same way i used to say
one more hit was clarity.
lies that felt like prayers
if you squinted.

truth is: to see anything
is trespass.
i’ve been trespassing my whole damn life.

the crowds move.
i don’t.
their voices slide through me
like weather with a pulse,
and i mistake the shaking
for something holy.

still, i lean toward the light.
old instinct, like hunger,
like relapse,
like reaching for a body
you know will bruise you.

i flinch & look anyway.
this is how we survive
being numerous:
touch the world lightly
and hope it doesn’t feel us.