What You See Won’t Kill You

Think of all the things that make

You think, Well that won’t kill you.

It’s not going to kill you

To do x or y or z.

But obviously, something,

Something you can feel moving

Under or inside these words,

Is a killer in the small

Harms that will never kill you.

Decades ago, you were here,

And today, in a fashion,

A line connecting that you

To this you is still intact.

So no, they didn’t kill you,

Those things it wouldn’t kill you

To do. Someone was fishing

Down by the crick with, perhaps

Improbably, a copy

Of Claudia Rankine’s text,

Citizen, weighted open

With small stones on the boulder,

Next to the fishing tackle.

Oh my God, I didn’t see

You, the thought fragment in mind

Offered up in memory

Of a passage in the book.

Oh my God, I didn’t see.