Bright Lights of January

An oak branch chewed down to the meat
and the window of a car grumbling over gravel
toward groceries and the news are midmorning’s
bright lights of January. The brittle leaves pool
in depressions, tar and caulking constrict
and wood smoke falls from the roofs. These
are the fallow days when opera retreats
backstage in costumes and scenery
between seasons. The cafe trade is thin.
Into this resonant cavity there comes a cable
singing of tropical seasons where the fish run
to be hooked and spring at the creel while
elsewhere the intolerable poverty continues
fresh and refreshed on a home monitor
the other side of need. The missionaries
killed for religious reasons keep going
for religious reasons, and their names too
are etched in downloads and town memorials
with all the other walls of names. The news
arrives with the groceries, where the one-eyed
man may be king but the gods are blind.