The Lockdown of Shanghai

Sometimes, there’s an urge to place
A memory marker down—

The bottle cap you buried
In the rocks the day you sensed

Your own life about to swerve,
Possibly not to return.

Not on days of big events
Everyone alive will stamp

And then memorialize
Tens of anniversaries—

Just on days you thought you felt
A shudder in the engine

Of the world as it goes on—
Not a rupture, not a quake,

Just a judder in the torque,
An odd hum. That can’t be good,

You thought, and then you wondered,
Like the twins perched on the cliff,

Is this it, then, is this one
The mene mene tekel

Upharsin one, by which time,
The hour’s already too late?

Then, years later, you came back
And dug up that bottle cap.