I found a word that's not in my dictionary, ghazal. In the morning light
I touch it again and again. Today the snow swallowed the mailman.
Birds tapped at the scrim of ice on the edge of this window. A Carolina wren, in the eaves, stuck its tongue to the metal, squawked and beat its wings in a frenzy until it expired, right there, hanging off the gutter by its beak. The bird twisted in the wind until the temperature warmed enough to let it fall.
Out back we tapped a maple tree and drew a barrel of oil. I saw the genius in this,
and launched a bid to win government funding for R&D. I would
later lose that bid
to Halliburton, because Dubai is more exotic than Brattleboro,
but this particular morning we were so pleased we drank champagne and orange juice
and lit a fire in the backyard with the excess oil. Somewhere IEDs were ripping skulls off children but we couldn't give a shit because we'd just won a free trip to Cancun.
That's how it goes. You give them a solution and they ignore you; complain loudly enough and they offer distraction. Cancun for cheap, a blue bracelet, a buffet, and all the rum you can drink.
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