Depraved Indifference

from Commotion of the Birds (2016)

                                     it was just a typical mid-sized town
	                             in the middle of nowhere
	                                       JAMES TATE,
	                                      “Burn Down the Town, No Survivors”

	Customize the event, picking at soul scabs,
	turning your face optimistically toward the window.
	There must be a long biography coming out soon,
	leggings to be worn, and so it is that earth
	gets turned over, and we all go back into our little houses
	for a while, and the land is generous.
	                                                    At least,
	that’s the way it would have turned out, if God
	or I had any say in the matter.  As it fell out,
	our leaders met in the azalea patch
	in an election year.  Outsiders were welcomed in
	with wine and cookies, and we all settled down
	to the business of the day.  Repealing the Stamp Act
	was big on everybody’s agenda, stamps being
	eternally optimistic, as though indebted to someone.
	That’s my definition, anyway.  Or do we have to be,
	or does it matter?  Meanwhile the Repair Act languishes.
	 
        Welcome to the family tree.  I am sick and tired
	at my earliest convenience.  This was supposed to make it easier,
	remember?  Hopefully his owner wires back and,
	thick as the dust on our reports, finds it totally
	unacceptable, yet not entirely unknown, queering
	the pitch for kids that used to hang around.
	Mr Pom from Camp Cute swept by,
	but he could foretell the cloying sound of water
	in water, haruspicate, start  a restaurant.  The broken land
	was free to be contaminated, again.