MMXX
after Larkin
Old men, having cast out their fishing lines,
wait to feel some tension, wait patiently.
They sip beer, say it’s good to be outside,
while others gather with signs in the park
beneath oppressive waves of summer sun.
People see each other, but not faces.
There’s something else here no one sees at all.
The interrogating song of a lark
overscores the air. From their scrubbed and bleached
houses, children peer through fingered sunblinds
at all the stony statesmen and sovereigns
falling down. They want to join in the play,
topple horsemen, explorers, kings, and queens.
Their parents’ screens fill with advertisements
for off-brand tissue, and drunks stalk the pubs.
A decade passes every other day.
Somehow, the biggest issue is caring.
It’s hard not to think everything’s over
as trucks arrive, tents are set up in fields,
and people in hazmat suits measure lines
while the lark’s song punctuates a silence.
Some assure the Lord won’t harm His servants,
that the faithful remain safe as houses,
while pardoned liars wave from limousines.
A fish swims in its complete innocence
toward a hooked fly, but spooks at a twitch since
fear is what it knows best. It swims on past.
Not too much luck today, think the old men.
In half an hour or so, they’ll rise, tidy
up, return to their silent marriages.
The fish drifts back toward the hook, no longer
afraid. Such innocence, ever again.