At the hinge

of before and after,

the boycott expands:

me from ordinary life,

ordinary life from me. 
Nostalgia summons

the once finely calibrated

habitus of advertising:

the very mint cashmere shawl indie

film festival new vegan restaurant

I didn’t know I did but wanted.
Not so much real intimacy,

just capitalism’s deep, surveillant interest

in my anxious homo economicus

(being looked at lovingly sometimes being close

enough to being loved). 
Now all seems random:

news reel, conversation, meeting

invitation — hasty incisions, knife slipping

over thumb and no dark metaphor for

salvage. I do not really yearn for the best

ten exercises to lose my stubborn belly or

how to lean in as a remote-working feminist;

all of my passwords feel compromised,

no simple hack gets them sleeping like babies. 
The expensive calm of now,

pruning things I know how to do

and people I know how to talk to,

leaves light shining down, me squinting at

questions — how to name a child so they know

they belong, how to name the body

so it doesn’t fail you, how to taste the sticky

corner of your mouth, how to fast forward

through all this, the very best day of life.