On the Train, A Man Snatches My Book
–Paige Lewis

On the train, a man snatches my book, reads
the last line, and says I completely get you,

you’re not that complex. He could be right–lately
all my what ifs are about breath: what if

a glass-blower inhales at the wrong
moment? What if I’m drifting on a sailboat

and the wind stops? If he’d ask me how I’m
feeling, I’d give him the long version–I feel

as if I’m on the moon listening to the air hiss
out of my spacesuit, and I can’t find the rip. I’m

the vice president of panic and the president is
missing. Most nights, I calm myself by listing

animals still on the least concern end of the
extinction spectrum: aardvarks and blackbirds

are fine. Minnows thrive–though this brings
me no relief–they can swim through sludge

if they have to. I don’t think I’ve ever written
the word doom, but nothing else fits.

Every experience seems both urgent and
unnatural–like right now, this train

is approaching the station where my lover
is waiting to take me to the orchard so we can

pay for the memory of having once, at dusk,
​plucked real apples from real trees.