The Local News

When you come back home,

the mayor has shot himself in the chest.

You remember him standing like a mannequin

in your high school auditorium, the smell

of scuffed wood and old chewing gum.

You've been so far away, no one

thought to tell you. You've been

in a place where shops burn down

every other day, leaving strange words

in the char: famous, Rajesh, Father.

The owners rake under the tin roofs

with their brothers, looking for unsinged

Dalai Lama postcards while tourists

watch from the other side of the street.

When you walked past, you thought

of tornadoes, how they never hit your house,

but you followed the local news: farmers

on the edge of town mending their barns.

Now, the papers are full of this man

who called 911 before turning

the gun against his heart so his family

wouldn't find him in the kitchen

and have to wipe the blood off the tile.

You remember the one ambulance

you saw in India, broke-down

and abandoned near the temple.