News at Noon

By Mary E. Weems

Television has a place in the house

like the mat on the dining room table, the dog and cat,

tables, couches, and chairs.

It’s midday and I take in recent deaths

with my Subway sandwich.  One after another recently departed

names, no faces get their 60 seconds of fame. No time

for close-ups, family interviews, respect for the dead

imbedded in reporters reading teleprompters, watching

laptop computer screens, keeping emotions

in-line with the script—

A reporter briefly mentions a man discovered dead inside

his house.

Reported by a neighbor tired of stacking the man’s newspapers on the front porch,

then the back porch, then beside the garage for twelve months.

His concern an environmental mental note he tossed around

for 90 days before dialing 911.

The neighbor knew where the spare key was. The officers

walked over a sea of different-colored-envelopes, their footprints

reading Past Due, Cancelled, Collections.

Everything a perfect combination of neat and dust, the spiders

covering the ceilings guarded their webs like soldiers.

Keeping cop noses to the ground, they hear a commercial advertising

McDonald’s just in time for the lunch they’ll have right

after this.

In the bedroom, what’s left of the man slouches in front of his HDTV.

The reclining chair holding him like a woman.

*   *   *   *   *

posting 25 February 2007