I Was Minding My Own Business

When I started to smell something burning

Photo by Mariano Baraldi on Unsplash

I was minding my own business,
teaching fractions, cooking
pasta, tying my shoes

when I thought I smelled
something burning —

kitchen was fine,
no smoke alarms
were going off

sky was its usual
smoggy self —
brown with a bit
of undecided
gray

my partner wasn’t
on fire — no effigies
or martyrdoms
this evening

so what could it be?
was it the smell of
the stock markets
plunging, people’s
superannuation and
401Ks going up
in flames?

was it the smell of
rising inflation, the
smell of panic

was it the smell coming
out of Mar a Lago of a
big Trump steak sliced
by Trump steak-knives
made in China?