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Letters to the Bat

In the News

by Rebecca Lu Kiernan


In world news that day
Pakistan beat Bangladesh by 89 runs
At Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur.

Nokia shares plummeted to 6.55 euros,
Lowest since ’98.

In Korolyov, just outside Moscow,
The six-man crew of the Mars500
Climaxed their 257 days
Pent up in the mock spacecraft
With a simulated landing
On the red planet.
The Russian Mission Control Center broadcasted live
The faux spacewalk
Of Alexander Smoleyevsky and Diego Urbina.
The mission had a second agenda beyond the technical,
The experiment of what the isolation of 250 days of flight,
30 days of orbit, and the 240 days returning to Earth
Would do to the psyche.

Tiger Woods apologized
For spitting on the green at Dubai.

The producers of the 3-million dollar Bollywood film
“Dear Friend Hitler” launched a marketing blitz
At the Berlin film festival.
It seems they plan to lighten up the Holocaust.

Four more bodies were recovered
From the Shahalam Market fire trap.
DNA testing to identify 3.
The cell phone SIM card
On the 4th body
Divulged enough information to notify the family.

Charlie Sheen told reporters he is ready
To return to “Two and a Half Men”
After his rehab break.

In Florida news that day
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Announced the Stardust spacecraft’s encounter
With comet Tempel 1.
At its closest kiss of 112 miles
It snapped 72 kaleidoscopic images.

The Naples Daily News
Reported an Immokalee woman was arrested
For having sex in a house of “ill fame.”
According to the police blotter,
Martha Torres de la Cruz
Of the 800 block of West Main Street
Performed the act in the west end of a trailer
For a fee of twenty-three dollars.

Thousands of sharks passed near Boca Raton’s beaches
En route to breeding grounds
Without stopping for a bite.

In local news,
On the street of Bent Arrow,
Mrs. Parker was trolling the bushes
In a purple, bleach-blotched moo-moo,
Her ferret having escaped for the third time.
Jimmy was going door to door
To find a ride to the craft shop where he works
As his car was broken down again,
And a man who had been secretly
Sobbing in the shower that morning
Thought about giving a woman
One final kiss
Before he went to work
And she finished moving out of the house,
But he knew he could not do it without breaking
And he did not want to traumatize the dog
Any further,
So he looked at the floor and the walls and his hands
When he said goodbye,
Anywhere but her face,
For fear some faint shade of affection would remain
After he put so much energy
Into being hated.

Ah, the peace
Of having absolutely nothing to lose.


Copyright © 2011 by Rebecca Lu Kiernan


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