The harder I try to be a good person, it seems the more I screw up. I try to help people, but I alienate them even more.

He muttered his way across the cafe,
mumbling through people eating
and talking, the chatter of lunch,

and stalked up to my table, and he said
—no, not said, something more like squeezed
or clenched, strenuous and painful—

Will you stop that.
Will you put your pencil
down, and stop touching it, stop moving

it, moving and shaking and twisting
it. Will you stop. Stop.
I wonder about him sometimes, worry

at him, turning him over and over,
considering his edges and angles:
When he walks down the street,

does he stumble as the traffic stutters
forward, brake lights flashing like strobes?
What does he do with the contrapuntal

staccato of children at hopscotch,
the herky-jerky rhythm of play?
—I imagine little girls in braids and t-shirts

looking at him with blank stares raw
as skinned knees as he pleads
his muttering commandments.

But on that day, stubborn
with surprise, undismayed by the jaw
of his fervor, I said, No.

He stared, fastened by wonder
and agitation, his fingers moving, nervous digits
tying and untying themselves, fretting

at some insoluble knot,
but I said, No. I said, Don't Look.
Just don't look, I said.

Christopher Cunningham