Askew

There’s something not quite right today.  Askew.

Not on-kilter.  It’s as if you, all of you,

are pod people now, and no one seems able to tell

but me.  As if one insignificant satellite fell,

so everyone’s GPS calmly sends them just 1.3

degrees off, north-northwest.  Have you jointly

agreed not to notice the vertigo

of this day, how even the mad concerto

of evening traffic is maybe half of one half

step flat?  Because what I see in your quaff

of coffee, your bus stop stare, the insouciance

of that bluetooth laugh, is an ignorance

born, I can only surmise, of a Stepford Wives-

like blind eye, when clearly nothing jives,

nothing about this day is copasetic, nothing

passes the smell test.  Can no one bring

back yesterday, that golden day when a person could

be counted on to tell you where you stood,

before she—or someone very like—would move the fulcrum,

nudge the lucid universe one bubble off plumb?

(from Subtropics, 2013)