fix: no matter how we breathe

There hasn't been enough poetry around here lately: time to remedy. Among the recently-reunited books is Alice Fulton's collection Felt, which I bought solely on the strength of one poem of hers that has occupied me for some time. I discovered "Fix" a little over a year ago, in late January or early February, and was spellbound by how exactly it captured what I was feeling at the time, especially in the third and fourth stanzas--the sense of imbalance, contingency, the mad world spinning off its axis--and yet all the hesitation bows down in the face of reflexive, unshakeable caring for someone. I copied fragments of it down in my red journal and read them over and over--it wasn't until almost a year later that I sought out the book, which is full of startling, thoughtful poems. But this is still far & away my favorite.

(the person this poem made me think of knows who they are)

Fix

There is no caring less
for you. I fix on music in the weeds,
count cricket beats to tell the temp, count
my breaths from here to Zen.
September does its best.
The Alaskan pipeline lacks integrity,
mineral fibers are making people dizzy,
we're waiting for a major quake. Ultra-
violet intensity is gaining,
the ozone's full of holes and

I can find no shade.
There is no caring less.
Without the moon the earth
would whirl us three times faster, gale-force
winds would push us down. Say
earth lost mass, a neighbor
star exploded -- it's if

and and and
but. The cosmos owns our luck.
Say under right and rare conditions,
space and time could oscillate.
I know what conditions
those would be for me.
I'd like to keep my distance,
my others, keep my rights reserved.
Yet look at you, intreasured,

where resolutions end.
No matter how we breathe
or count our breaths,
there is no caring less
for you for me. I have to stop myself

from writing "sovereign," praising
with the glory words I know.
Glaciologists say changes
in the mantle, the planet's vast
cold sheets could melt. Catastrophe
is everywhere, my presence
here is extra -- yet --
there is no caring less.

Alice Fulton