Sunday Poem

SUMMIT

This isn't the light we wanted, the weather

we're supposed to be having. But it's still

sometimes all we have to talk about. We

put all our little fingertips in the sky

and changed the climate—those are your

fingerprints on the moon, and mine. Now

we've made room for these leaders,

appointments moving like flocks of birds

down the calendar. The police get sweeping

new powers to sweep us away, and we hope

this particular patchwork of leaders will give

a little thought to the little people, some

blank-eyed woman behind a window holding

a sandwich to her face like gauze to a wound.

Not to worry, there are key initiatives,

discussions. I know change, it's like a coin

we take out and toss again and again. All

we're doing is hanging like a water droplet.

From The Least Important Man (Biblioasis, 2012) by Alex Boyd.