How We Disappear

I am in the store touching things.

Linen napkins, a blue bowl.

The world is on fire and I am choosing

between two kinds of soap.

Everyone here is doing this, filling carts

with small comforts while somewhere a child

goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,

while men make decisions about who gets to live.

I know what this is, this careful arranging

while everything collapses.

This is how we survive.

And also how we disappear.

—Alessandra Olanow