Muscle Memory

The muffler blew out on a passing sedan

and I was on the pavement before I could think.

It’s a funny thing, how the nerves remember

the years I wasn't living in this city.

I stood up and brushed the grit from my palms,

trying to look like a man who just tripped,

while the shoppers looked on with their bags full of bread

and their faces as blank as a screen.

My right index finger is twitching again,

a rhythmic, invisible pull of a cord.

The danger is gone, but the meat of the hand

is still waiting for the rest of the war.