there is no caring less

I was indirectly introduced to this poem by newredshoes. She recced a short, perfect, and utterly lovely West Wing story: The cosmos owns our luck. The story, I learned from the author's notes, was based on a poem: Fix by Alice Fulton. I loved the story -- and I wholeheartedly rec it, especially if you love The West Wing, and even if you don't -- but I loved the poem even more.

There is no caring less
for you. I fix on music in the weeds,
count cricket beats to tell the temp, count
my breaths from here to Zen.
September does its best.
The Alaskan pipeline lacks integrity,
mineral fibers are making people dizzy,
we're waiting for a major quake. Ultra-
violet intensity is gaining,
the ozone's full of holes and

I can find no shade.
There is no caring less.
Without the moon the earth
would whirl us three times faster, gale-force
winds would push us down. Say
earth lost mass, a neighbor
star exploded -- it's if

and and and
but. The cosmos owns our luck.
Say under right and rare conditions,
space and time could oscillate.
I know what conditions
those would be for me.
I'd like to keep my distance,
my others, keep my rights reserved.
Yet look at you, intreasured,

where resolutions end.
No matter how we breathe
or count our breaths,
there is no caring less
for you for me. I have to stop myself

from writing "sovereign," praising
with the glory words I know.
Glaciologists say changes
in the mantle, the planet's vast
cold sheets could melt. Catastrophe
is everywhere, my presence
here is extra -- yet --
there is no caring less.

—Alice Fulton (b. 1952), "Fix", from The Atlantic, April 29, 2010.