a few degrees off center

the zinnias had gone mad

bursting orange at sunrise

in the tainted gravel.

reality was just slightly off,

a few degrees,

a couple ticks on the clock,

the greens a little sicker,

the reds a tad darker

the air a little thicker.

not enough to notice

consciously, really, except

for some buddhist monks

and three-year olds.

the starlings and the sparrows knew,

they sang til well past midnight

and the milk expired hours before

the date stamps on the cartons.

lovers were uncertain

that the person sleeping

peacefully beside them

was not a stranger,

wondering if that ear

was not quite the same

as the one that they had

nuzzled the night before.

it was nothing so dramatic

as the day it rained meat

in olympia springs, kentucky

on march 3, 1876.

just traffic signals slightly out of sync,

and some words in the dictionary

had new spellings in the morning.