Involuntary

The fine print on the aspirin bottle

is a blur of warnings I can't quite catch

because my left eyelid is performing a rhythm

I didn't ask for. A tiny, frantic electric wire

snapping under the skin.

I look like I’m signaling something—

a secret, or a lie—to the woman at the counter.

She looks back at my chart and then at my face

while I try to hold the muscle down with a thumb.

In the curve of the plastic sneeze guard,

my reflection is a wide, watery smear,

my own features betraying me in public,

one eye jumping like a moth caught in a jar.