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by Brandon Krieg

  
Someone looked at her 
and saw nothing, my teary 

neighbor said. The TV food scientist 
crushed the loaf flat with his palm 

to show how much of bread is air.  
Caring less makes you powerful,
  
I guess. I don’t know. I am a fool  
and always care. The world is 

a one-month wheat supply away  
from blood in the streets. 
 
I eat cheap wheat berries and beans 
and feel thrifty and pleased.  

Or was it the fool doesn’t care,  
not in the way the others do?  

I’d like to be a fool then, I guess.  
One of those wanderers in weird hat 

you don’t really notice  
until the train lurches forward  

from the platform. I’ll volunteer 
this time to hold the place  

of that other life none of us has been 
foolish enough to try—picking and  

eating blackberries from vines thickly 
tangled  over some dumped cans of turpentine.