True Crime Stories

True crime stories
half the day
on half the media
unless you include
celebrity news

and then it’s all media,
all the time.

I wish instead of this 
I could go outside and 
talk to a tree but I think
it would insist on speaking
of climate change and air quality
so there’d be no relief there,

that’s a crime as well
and as true as the rest
and we know who the culprits are
and we have the evidence
of our bitter sweat
and hampered breath

to turn over to the authorities
if only we knew who they were.

So I stay inside and use
the flipping of channels as
palliative care, changing 
when the dread becomes
overwhelming.

The only comfort left to me
is the hope of updates on ancient episodes
of Cold Case Files and Unsolved Mysteries;

anything to suggest that though justice
grinds slow, it does grind fine
and finally.