Mechanics of Causality

You blink
and the dogs in El Salvador bark.

A coin banks its hopes on a fountain
and a bear breaks the filip-tip of a fern.

The drummer frowns at the ridges in his cymbals
and the summer buffer in the silo spills.

The wingdinger forgets what her symbols mean
and a canary forgets her nest in a mine.

Sleep elects a hummingbird
and the physicist fires his whiteboard.

I bed the burn with aloe
and you find your button under the cushion under your ass in the
alcove.

I smother my sympathy
and you smother your sympathy.

I lose my joke in syncope
and the whole auditorium laughs.

Cali Kopczick has work published or forthcoming in Entropy, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Bear Review, and others. She is an editor at Seattle publisher Chin Music Press and the writer/production manager for Where the House Was. You can find her on Twitter as @CaliKopczick.