Poetry

LITERATURE

News as it should be

Pundits sit alone in their rooms, faces hanging like pale moons as the anchor relays the day’s headlines from his basement, family sailing overhead, only the cat creeping down.

The meteorologist, clouds and coffee for company, forecasts a rainy day from his kitchen. Cut to the analyst. She’s lit a candle and turned on her fireplace, though she still comes off as cold, lips red as sleds slicing through snow-white teeth.

I want to keep receiving news from the correspondent hunkered in her parents’ living room. A cuckoo exits his chalet, weak song blooming from beak, announcing the passing of time.

After this is over, I want to keep reading rooms, curl up like Lisa Desjardins’ cat, Rocky, and yawn indifferently as reporters cover wars from home, watch shadows fold and unfold.

Over the ottoman, a blanket is artfully draped. Easy to imagine the room askew moments before airtime, someone plumping pillows, picking up newspapers, a stray shoe. It’s comforting to witness common dramas play out: a dog barks, a doorbell rings, sirens scream. Interviewees abruptly leave their sofas to open doors and close windows.

Hope lurks in corners and dusty shelves. An old man being interviewed in his study shifts, and a photo of a younger him appears. Framed in gold, he’s wearing a bow tie and lifting his bride, her dress streaking across the sky. Behind another, a map of the world splayed flat before us, the weary watchers. But we are here. We are all here.

— Jennifer Clark

Clark, who is intrigued by how the pandemic has changed the way we experience the news, is a native and current resident of Kalamazoo. She is also the author of the children's book What Do You See in Room 21 C? and of three full-length poetry collections, most recently A Beginner's Guide to Heaven. Her next book, Kissing the World Goodbye, will be published in March by Unsolicited Press. It ventures into the world of memoir, braiding family tales with recipes.

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