School buses are rolling on our streets this morning.
Pictures of a friend’s daughter and her baby arrive in the mail.
I’m waiting on the last tomatoes to redden before frost.
Was your summer as fun as the papers would make us believe?
A notorious man hanged himself last night
and half my friends are grimly satisfied.
Serves him right, they say, burn in hell.
They’re acting as if death wasn’t inevitable. As if
he hasn’t escaped the real punishment through this act,
taken while I was waiting for the last tomatoes to redden before frost.
Buses are rolling this morning. I watch the kids fidgeting at the stop.
It’s a slow death for some of them; all that school will bring
is social pain and maybe something worse. For some starting anew
is just continuing to approach the ending.
These pictures of the baby are a snap of perfection:
smiling, her mother rapt while holding her;
with her eyes closed tight she gets to be safe
for a little while. Her skin’s as red as sunrise…
reminder of how some tomatoes redden, and some fall from the vine.
Dark Matter 
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