How We Disappear by Alessandra Olanow

 
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.