Quarantine

Because I did not have to smell the cow’s fear,

because I did not have to pin the man, watch his eyes

go feral, because I did not have to drag the stones

that formed in the child’s body, because I did not sheathe

my hands in dank soil, or skirt the machine’s battering, the needles

knitting my lower back, because when the factory collapsed

I smelled no smoke, and no one made me kneel at the cop’s boots

and count the pulse slowing beside me as every sound

soured, because my hands have never had to resist being comforted

by the warmth of blood, because the plastic-

wrapped meat and the mousetraps, because my job

was to stay clean and thankful and mostly imaginary, I have been stealing

what little I can:

onions. sandpaper. handfuls of skin.

the dumpster’s metal groan. hurried breath. hot knives.