An Imagist Reads the Newspaper Over a Modest Breakfast
by Jess Walter
A woman with short dark hair
marries. Her last name goes
from Walker to Flowers.
A young plumber who loved
his two black dogs and growing
meat-red tomatoes dies
on a storming, gray Sunday. A photo
of round-faced children building
asymmetrical birdhouses is perched
next to another of a balding,
thick-browed cop holding
a hunting rifle with his fingertips,
as if to say This isn’t mine.
A twelve-hour prison riot quiets,
fire sprinklers and a window
the only casualties. A nervous man high
on meth and wearing a crooked
ski mask walks a neighborhood
carrying an empty gun, the wrong
ammunition, enough white powder
to incapacitate a rhino, brass
knuckles. The police question him,
and he sits on the ground, begging
for arrest. The yellow yolk bleeds
onto the glazed white
plate.