Читать книгу Local News from Someplace Else - Marjorie Maddox - Страница 12

It’s still sci-fi,

this slim disk catching sky in its curve,

luring invisible signals.

Unsightly aliens,

satellite dishes dot suburban lawns,

click code into unsuspecting homes.

Here is not anywhere close

to captions crossing television screens,

unconvincingly disguising our town

as Tulsa or Tuscaloosa

where the same two masked men

stick up a shiny gas station,

smile suspiciously into the eye

of the security camera.

Perhaps they are you

or your cousins traveling through

another state or time

into this 27-inch space

of otherworldliness, the familiar

and foreign switching uniforms

to the tune of Time and Temperature.

It is always snowing or raining

someplace like here

while our own windows lie

their pretend sunshine

on a street somewhat like yours.

Whom can we trust

when a smiling anchor

prophesies the utmost danger

around the corner

of tomorrow? Today, someone’s

floods will rise up

past the screen, our remote a small boat

of numbers, helpless with no

SOS in the making.

Brushfires will spark from antennae

hunching too close to our house

while hurricanes huff through wires.

We try to look outside

to our own doings, but all fingers

are frozen. No matter

what channel we pay,

there is still no news from home.