By Danny Caine

There’s too much news
and not enough me.
I’m not sure if there’s
enough of you either.
It takes a million news
to buy a loaf of bread.
Wheelbarrows of news.
People line up for blocks
to withdraw their news
before it’s too late.
The run on news
has caused the industry
to consolidate further
and us too—there’s
really only two of us now.
As the plane lands
you slowly loosen
your grip on my
whitened fingers.
The attendant says
“I’d like to be the first
to welcome you to
Unprecedented Times.”
Somewhere a man
is buying a gun.
Somewhere a couple
is trying not to
think about it.
Somewhere a sign
says “Due to The
Unfortunate we are
deeply out of onions!”
I’d like to stop living
through history.
I’d love to know more
about how to love.
I have questions
for you. Four
questions. More.
You tell me to
pardon your dust.
Every day is demo day.
I’m sure there are
a million times you
could’ve given up
on me. But here you are.
Now help me with this
wheelbarrow, would ya?

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Danny Caine is the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast, El Dorado Freddy’s, Flavortown, and Picture Window, as well as the books How to Protect Bookstores and Why and How to Resist Amazon and Why. His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, Cleveland Review of Books, DIAGRAM, HAD, and Barrelhouse. He’s the program operations coordinator at Literary Cleveland, and a co-owner of the Raven Book Store, Publishers Weekly’s 2022 bookstore of the year.