Object permanence box
teaching the baby how
to know reality from sight –
in the sepia days
before the deepfake firmament,
when trusting your own
two eyes was a mark
of integrity – now just
a sign of being
a mark –
the quick
and the dead –
who can say?
D. W. Baker is a submerging poet from St. Petersburg, Florida, where he writes about place, bodies, belonging, and the end of the world. His work appears in Corporeal Lit, Feral Poetry, Green Ink Poetry, and Modern Haiku, among others, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He reads poetry for two journals, Cosmic Daffodil and Hearth & Coffin. Find more of his work at linktr.ee/dwbaker.