Too done yesterday with the state of things
not to put my better time into
trying to forget it all today.

I’ve got peppers to tend
and tomatoes to stake.
Might be a summer squash or two

to see, and from that look I might predict
when ripeness might take hold.
I’ll plan, or maybe daydream,

that first meal with them:
perhaps stir fried in a thick bath
of butter and garlic, tossed loose

and hot onto a plate with 
whatever’s easy
and quick that day.

The summer squash
so long anticipated will be the highlight
and whatever else the meal offers

will scarcely matter
on that night
when the news will undoubtedly be

worse or at least no better 
than today’s news. But
the summer squash will be 

better than that. Better than
the end of the world,
if it hasn’t already come and gone by then.