Does it have to be true, that everything
we touch, we break a little? Josh’s garden fence.
My bicycle. Reva’s walk to work after you
shouted her name. Can you give me something
of a counterexample? I ran out yesterday—
the TV showed pictures of labs in California
so sterile breathing was its own kind
of crime. We always thought of ourselves
as too small to smudge anything, yet by design
or indifference, our flashes bleached even
the founding parchments. No one knows
what they will do with power until they have it.
None of us believes we got it when they do.