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
