A placebo is basically a metaphor:
still rigorous and true for the body.
Smells like summer and a bag between
us, a black tote eating sun never mind
the blue sky, weeks left, or leather
cushions our knees dropped into.
We like each other’s eyes.

The eyes recalibrate as a result  
of experience - meaning
everything we see can shrink
or magnify, meaning, sight is plastic.
We blink and the world rearranges.
We blink and it remains unchanged.

Just looking: sideways at a brick wall,
across the street at a bus, down at the
grass and its fruit flies, toward the floor,
pretending to be shy, or at the ceiling
before you bite, deciding a view is
beautiful - those are indiscernibly
small and precise recalibrations.

The earth does this too, tilts on
its axis, desires heat and light.
One orbit, which lasts 405,000 years,
helps geologists measure planetary
dynamics. Sedimentary records etch
their evidence in rock. That’s how certain
a recalibration is, as certain as the globe
warming, fake medicine, false starts, real healing.