What You Said Last Night - Jan 30 2024

 

What You Said Last Night

Jan 30 2024

News you can use.

That they're calling for snow.

That pork roast

is on special this week.

That the neighbour's husband was seen

kissing someone's wife.

Useful stuff,

unlike the gossip

on the nightly news,

the all-caps scroll

alert on your phone.

We mostly shrug our shoulders

at breaking news

big events

distant tragedies.

Soon forget

what the President said,

the op-ed

in yesterday's paper,

the pompous punditry

on CNN.

Tune out

the commentators

bloviators

and breathless agitators

who alway have something to say.

The enablers

and self-promotors,

the thin-lipped haters

with red faces

and bulging veins.

Either commiserate, or condemn,

but then shake our heads

and get on with it,

feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

Turn in, instead

to our small lives

and daily concerns.

To snow tires and shopping lists,

catty whispers

dirty smirks.

To what you said last night

after turning out the lights

I keep replaying in my head.

Not the perfunctory luv ya

you usually say,

but the muttering under your breath

when you turned on your side

facing away.

And that husband

who got in trouble

and denied everything.

Who protested too much

for his own good.