The sky is open
all the way.
Workers upright on the line
like spokes.
I know there is a river somewhere,
lit, fragrant, golden mist, all that,
whose irrepressible birds
can’t believe their luck this morning
and every morning.
I let them riot
in my mind a few minutes more
before the news comes.
Send me a slow news day,
a quiet, subdued day,
in which nothing much happens of note,
save for the passing of time,
the consumption of wine,
and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.
Grant me a no news day,
a spare-me-your-views day,
in which nothing much happens at all,
except a few hours together
some regional weather,
a day we can barely recall.
I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing
between two kinds of soap.
Everyone here is doing this, filling carts
with small comforts while somewhere a child
goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,
while men make decisions about who gets to live.
I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear.
