I Thought I Was Good at Something

and then I lose an hour to those billiard-trick-shot videos,
magnificent, their impossible spins, flawless timing,
the punctuated clunk of the corner pockets like God exhaling
just a little. I lose another hour watching and another.
Months evaporate this way. There’s the one where the cue ball
kisses every single solid in procession as if in a receiving line
before sinking the eight. There’s the simple shot, a spin
so hard, the cue circles back on itself only a few inches
away to sink a ball exactly behind it. If I eat I don’t remember
having done so. If I have lovers they haven’t called. If I have
a name I will need you to remind me. But then it’s today
and something snaps in me like a glowstick, bright
and temporary. My mother phones and starts talking about
identifying possum tracks in the snow. Isn’t it summer?
I think and venture out in the city. I get on the train, head
to whatever job I recall having had but still the world is here
too much and like an eclipse it’s bad for you to look at directly,
the naked tenderness of the men reading self-help books
on the train—all their failures and desires written
right there on the covers. I surface to the streets of this city
made crazy with commuters, how perfect we are, moving
toward what it is we chase. How one by one
we drop into the manholes on the corners with a clunk.