Tracy Simmons
thirty-two repetitions
i didn’t worry for myself but
for my mother
who took each morning bus
and breathed the same air
that housed the voice of the man who
harassed her
for the coworker who took
each workday like a prescription
for the man i knew in college who
shared his younger sister’s artwork
and wondered aloud when he’d see her again
realizing i’d not spoken to him in four years
a psychologist i’d known told me thirty seconds to
three minutes could not
assume the length of a nightmare
my physics teacher years before said time is relative
i wondered how many more people
could fit the rest of their life into these four years
i thought of the older man crying in the park and
wondered if by some diminishment of psychic distance
he saw what i see right now