A one litre cup of, call it a quart,
is leaking, cracks so fine we cannot
in truth point here and here. Civic shame,
the hose, now PVC, held limply, starts
to refill from the four corners of the—
and even our own broad acres.
We turn on or off the news that isn’t,
roll daily newspapers into logs,
straighten our masks or wigs as we
go to the A & P, where TV shows
their faces, through the steel bars
of our garden’s fence,
apples bitten, half-bitten, strewn cores
at our door’s welcome sign,
already dangling on its last nail.
