Meditation #24

You are too brittle,
you think, to care at all about the state
of the world.  You’ve decided
that it’s doomed. The imminence of that
is getting to you.

You crack a little.
Flakes of you
are everywhere.  You vaccuum
obsessively, picking through
the bag to fish yourself out.
Superglue has replaced body wash
on the grocery list. 

There’s a bed full of fragments
in the next room.  To hell with laundry.
Call CSI and have them find out who they belong to —
victim, perpetrator, or both.

You think Darfur, Iraq, Oakland, DC
are just bylines for the irrelevance of caring.
You tell everyone that all politics is local anesthetic
for the wounds of the personal moment,

and all of that is just a way of disguising
the tinkle of shards that accompanies you
everywhere you go.