Words Are Workers Tending Grubs in Cells

You have your circles,

Tiny circles, most

Of you, and you care

Less for what happens

To them in their lives

Than for what they think

Of you and your life.

Wrote Colson Whitehead

Recently, No one

Really cares about

Other people when

You get down to it—

Their own struggles are

Too close up. A prop

Plane drones through the blue,

And you think of home

And lonesome childhood,

When you could be bored.

You can’t anymore.

What would so-and-so

Think of you, you think—

Not, How’s so-and-so

Feeling this morning?

How impressed you’d be,

If you only knew.