An Early Edition | George Bishop
The paper girl’s late again so I have to wait,
the news and I getting older together, apart,
the way it was when everything happened. Already
things have changed and by the time I drop down
into some uprising half a world away a few people
will have put life back into death by candlelight.
By the time I find the eye, hurricane Someone
will be clear about the beach it’s picturing,
how it wants things, perhaps a person of interest
will have been found a few block away. So I turn
to yesterday’s paper, the lead story short of oil,
a fire out, a wedding over—Stow and Gorby still
as dead as they were when they were alive. Maybe
this is what I need, to read a few articles over,
find out where the words settled. I can quote
what hasn’t happened as easily as the bible I pick,
but the facts don’t need a bible to breathe. They open
up in you like today’s paper, the one the dog brought
in when I wasn’t looking, while I watched the neighbor’s
wife leave in a hurry, dark glasses on before dawn,
a suitcase deep in her purse. I’m thinking tears,
maybe something swollen, bruises coming together,
tips arriving on a private line like crows.