news anchors believe they are poets (poets believe the same)

there are people who explain feelings so well
we no longer need to feel at all

so we imagine that feelings
are larger in us than if we felt them

they say they’re as strong as earthquake rumors
we feel ripples the size of mountains running through us

but nothing is truly felt except for the small trigger of the word
“tsunami” whispering inside us

it is not the same word as “dehydration”
or “vegetative state” but the same thing happens

we feel at a remove
as they make the words do what we want

yet another human becomes a news story
or a fat billboard for change

either way we do not see or feel
the stone wall of water smoothing the town like a still rumpled quilt

the people who stand and watch
and let the water come

or the warm dead hand becoming a cold dead hand
clutching the puzzle of morphine given to a woman who can’t feel

you’d never know we once were happy to be sentient
the way that now we render flesh to posterboard