Response

Is apathy an acceptable response?
It feels better (because feels less) than other options
Which are available to us readers of the news
Where some police shoot children, and where kids
Kill lots of people with their parents’ guns.

It seems, to guns as news, that we adjust,
But more headlines beat on us every day
With floods, hate, lies, and thefts on grandstand scale.
We see wars, and photographs of screaming grief,
And unmitigated everyday small meanness.

Anthropogenic warming. Globe goes Bang!
Put on blinkers. Turn off all reports of spying.
Take pills of higher strength. Ignore the signs
Until it all hurts less, until you’re happy.
A little, sometime. Nearer apathetic.