Michael J. Kolb

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Falling Just Enough

The better I look, the less urgent I become.
A shirt can hide what the skin reveals. I know
the tricks of appearing alive while the body keeps dimming
underneath.
Too much composure and they send me home. Too much
collapse and everyone speaks softly. I practice
the smile that means fine, the walk that hides which leg
has started to forget itself.
Once, my wife believed the face I made. She turned
to ordinary things, and I had to call her back,
admit the thing I had just denied.
There is a narrow place between concern and crisis,
and most days I find it exactly, the way the tongue
finds one bad tooth without being told
where to look.
Some nights I forget which version is true:
whether I am hiding the dying
or dying from hiding.
Friends say I look good.
I know what that costs me.

Michael J. Kolb is a poet, educator, and archaeologist based in Colorado.  He writes across disciplines, exploring nature, memory, and illness, asking what we carry and what we leave behind. His collection What Keeps Me Looking Out the Window was a finalist for the 2026 Press 53 Award. His poems have appeared in The Shore, Third Wednesday, ONE ART, Sky Island Journal, Eunoia Review, San Antonio Review,  Trampoline, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. He lives with his family and dogs where the mountains, shoreline, and changing weather continually shape his sense of place. 

Find him on Instagram at @michaeljkolb and on Substack at substack.com/@michaeljkolb.