we’re not too sure about these people
we’ve become, minimalists in deliverance
but gluttons in our feeling—protecting our
belongings but not really protecting them
at all, while yielding ourselves to those
people who join us on our train home.
though we might confess, in hesitance, how we were
moved to tears by the man in the window seat
who ignored his reflection as we rode through
a tunnel, how we suddenly began to crave
bare flesh when the hood of her jacket barely
blessed our shoulder, and even how we swore
we saw the outcome of our lives as we were
stung by the eyes of a stranger—we quietly crave
this power to distort somebody. it is a language
we are already fluent in, yet we all dream about
how great it must be, to be able to adjust
sentiment purely by thinking or touching.