Comfort

What animates these beautiful machines,
all these sleepwalkers,
with a shared sense of being at the center 
combined with a desire not to exist at all?

What digs in its heels against
children crying, children laughing,
dirty dishes, clean laundry, long fingernails,
visitors arriving and leaving,
yet yearns to live forever
and even resolves to wake up?

What makes us pull the car over
to drag a fallen tree from the road on Christmas Eve?
What makes us keep driving, accidently hitting the one
who stopped in the dark to prevent a tragedy?

What makes us weigh the suffering of the driver,
the dead, and both of their loved ones,
as if attempting to solve such a puzzle 
ever comforted anyone?