Last Night’s News


A starving child on the news last night
held high by her father so we’d see.
You had to guess at the father, outside
the picture but framed by the ruined city.
What help besides more bombs and pity?
A starving child on the news last night.

A hungry child on the news last night
with too large eyes in an impassive face.
Someone yanked off her knitted cap so you
could see the brittle hair and, even more,
what hunger does and someone else’s war.
A hungry child on the news last night.

Today you went to work; you shopped, ate 
three meals; you watched TV, had a snack.
But you’d seen those huge eyes looking back
and thought you heard the father’s manic voice 
cursing the world for what it can’t make right.
A starving child on the news last night.


​


The GloFish


The walls were blank
up in your loft.
The sheets were worn;
your bed was soft.

The GloFish watched
till we were done,
silver, sad-eyed, 
and all alone.

‘I’m a recluse,
a shut-off soul--
like your GloFish
in that glass bowl.’

‘It’s a mutant,
unique,’ you said,
‘first of her kind.
Soon she’ll be dead.’  

‘So last,’ I sighed.
‘Adamless Eve,’
you snapped and then  
told me to leave.


  

             
Ointment


The hedges are trimmed and the grass
mown; all is green and flat around
the birdbath’s pedestal; myrtle

and violets flourish beneath 
the magnolia and pines.  The bathroom 
tiles gleam; the desk is dust-free, 

the kitchen counters spotless as the 
bamboo floor, the Shiraz rug, your 
lungs and conscience.  You’ve exercised, 

sweated, showered, and nobody’s 
phoned to raise alarms.  Well-being 
suffuses the summer afternoon 

which is silent, blue.  You’re half through 
Conrad’s Rover; Les Enfants du
Paradis waits for nightfall on

a silver disk.  You recall Brahms’
Second Serenade in your ears 
as you biked beside a pasture,

three horses, how she used to smile. 
Regret’s been crammed into a drawer.
Sparrows and butterflies rejoice. 

Your work’s gone well; one hour after
dinner should suffice to finish.  
Because nothing seems wrong, time stops.

 “Ointment” first appeared in Carcinogenic Poetry