And Less Than No Why

Little, physical changes, small
Events that start, stop, or alter
Life in large ways, decades after—

The way you opened a door once
On a bland, sunny morning, light
Workload, no peculiar stresses,

Could have set off a chain of thoughts
That coursed around your other thoughts,
Maybe turned up in your writing,

And so on, on, and on it goes,
Small gestures swirling in ether
That add, subtract, or vaporize,

While some motions, large and small,
Leave no alterations at all—
Those waves summed together, canceled

Each other out—and you can’t know
Which will be which, and maybe not,
Even retrospectively—seas

Are like that, and you are at sea.
Surrender causation’s fictions.
Your world goes. Ain’t no how it goes.