“A man walks into a coffee shop.

But it’s not a joke.

I bought coffee there

last summer.

Small, with milk.

It’s never a joke

to walk in or out of a shop

unharmed. It’s easy

to forget

you aren’t a person

being shot at.

I’m not.

I wasn’t, though

I was there,

last summer.

Not-shot-at

and I never knew it.

Did not once

think it.

Thinking it now

the moment thins,

it sheers,

and I move back to

other coffee shops

where I never fell, or bled,

and then

I sit for a while

with my regular cup

and feel things collapse

or go on, I can’t tell.”