No Pause

The toast came down face-first.

The jam made an orange shape on the linoleum—

nothing it could be mistaken for,

just a shape.

I picked it up.

Ate it.

No pause.

Not the five-second rule,

not what I might have swallowed with it—

just the total absence of negotiation,

the hand going from floor to mouth

as if the floor were not the floor,

as if the decision

had already been made somewhere

I didn't have access to.

I wiped the smear with a sock.

Left the sock balled up near the trash.

Stood there looking at the clean tile

where the stain had been.

The not-caring that came before.

Then the looking after.