Dead to the World

When the news comes the way

it sometimes does in a dream

in which you are eating your fingers,

smacking your lips at their deep-

fried goodness but all the while

knowing there is something

not quite right about this scenario,

but the wrongness is not enough yet

to overcome your feeding frenzy

until you get all the way to the third

finger on your second hand and begin

to notice a persistent tapping

in the background as though a tiny

metronome were keeping the beat

for a tiny mouse ballerina who lives

and practices her pas de chats

in the suburbs of Medulla, Oblongata—

but until then you are dead to the world,

not unlike yesterday, when your co-workers

emerged from their cubicles en masse

to huddle around the big screen

in the break room.  From your chair

you could see some of them lift

a hand to cover their mouths, others

shake their heads and slump into chairs,

and when you joined them for a closer

look, no one spoke to you except

in half-muffled sobs, their red eyes

looking right through you, so this,

you guessed, this had nothing to do

with another birthday party where

there would be cake and singing

to while away the rest of the work day,

no, this must be something new

they were finding out about the world—

at their ages, too!—something flashing

in their eyes, worming into their ears,

something that would briefly drown

out the sound of the dozen clocks

in the empty office, a ticking
which seems to you the only sound.

(from Writing Tomorrow, 2014)