Nothing, Probably

In the cereal aisle I felt it first—

the back of my neck. I turned around.

Nothing. A cart. The worst

interpretation: the background sound

of my own paranoia. My hand

had stopped mid-reach, suspended

between the shelf and me. The bland

overhead. I attended

to nothing. Got the box. Moved on.

Checkout: two lanes over, a coat—

same height, same aisle. The drawn

feeling again. I wrote

it off. Drove home. Have been

going back to it three days.

The hand in the air. The scene.

The coat. Whether the gaze

was a gaze at all.

Almost nothing.

Almost.