End of December

Some are marooned
surrounded by snow choked streets
or awash in thick mud
waist deep in the kitchen
while others are just left standing
at the foot of a collapsed bridge
where they know understanding
will never occur.

I helped with the dishes this time
and thought about a girl's brown eyes
bright and alive with happiness
at a wedding
and I thought about the possibility of skin cancer
the gravity of a stroke and
the certainty that these graying people
will leave us soon.

I worried for us and I wondered
what happened to us and
I felt nostalgia for
that feeling of
us.

I thought that there are people now in the world
who look over their shoulders in sudden terror
repeatedly
during the course of their day
prodded by the persistent, not-so-irrational fear
of a drone strike.

I told him about the victims of the floods
one third of the population
and he said
"aren't they the enemy?".

There is no us
I fear
and then think
that in Winter
one just waits
for Spring.