Alex Salinas writes

Rolly pollies

Every morning, I wake up to find

about seven or eight rolly pollies  

scattered on my beige carpet,

some alive, some barely, some dead.

I used to approach them cautiously,

use paper towels to shield 

my palms from their shells,

then throw them into the garbage.

O the damage that did.

When I finally decided to take matters

into my own hands, actually feel the

pellets of their bodies roll,

I stopped dumping them

into the trash and instead released

them to the patch of grass 

outside my front door.

They say newborns need their 

mother’s touch, skin-to-skin contact,

to help their brains produce the right

amount of hormones. 

Adulthood is no different.

Walk into any state prison and stare 

long enough into a convict’s eyes—

tell me what you find missing there. 

They say we eventually become self-sufficient—  

logical, reasonable, responsible. 

They say once we pass the age of childhood,

we’ve grown up.

This is the point at which we

lose touch, probably—forget the connections
we made when we used to be unafraid
of using our hands.