COLD COMFORT

There's no comfort wanting the night
to be an oracle split open like a sigh

suggesting this quaking should stop.
I've cursed everything from the slip

of the moon to Ganesh's broken tusk
and wondered if the present is confused

by the past and the past is a book
shoved under a window to let air rush in.

What if the car stops leaking oil
and grass turns into a miracle of lawn?

I'll learn to paint murals on landslip walls
and name flowers that are blue. Plumbago

is one but what if the others are bruised
by the ravages of another bloody war?