newsprint 

i call you a headline to get your attention.
come on & stocks tank. a share holder
is the last living member of his species.
tomorrow we will commemorate month
of months. a place where we can
representation ourselves in a strike.
the oldest woman alive is selling 
a new flavor of cap'n crunch out of
her boat house. people gather to watch
a corpse flower bloom. it is new years
or it is not. it is christmas again or it is not
& a food drive for our kindergarten troops
is all we have to do to feel good. canned
sausages. canned pudding. a world record
for the largest can of baked beans. middle schoolers
pay off their teacher's medical bills 
by auctioning off their fingernails. we all 
are doing our best or so i am telling you
because today someone set fire to 
a beautiful tree we used to love. i once 
returned to a childhood playground
years later just to find a stump where
a hearty oak used to stand. i smelled
the stump. a reporter held a microphone
& asked, "have you died yet today?" i had not
until that moment. a sound bite of my saying,
"let's not be too worried" when i most certainly 
should be very worried. a new drone 
delivers chocolate to a sea monster 
on it's way to rip open a peaceful.
the fig tree doesn't grow in places like this.
we sit in your grandmother's living room
& wrap each dinner plate in newsprint.
on the television a celebrity is 
a memorializing. casket. bag pipe.
the plates are pristine. never used. 
we keep & keep. we do not talk but sometimes
i move my mouth along with 
the television host as he says,
"a hurricane is spotted off the coast of florida"
& "but there is some good worry."