Television Girl
He seldom got his news from television.
The crime of the day,
or the cruelty of man,
seemed too real in video form.
He remembered the images
of VietNam that populated his youth.
Every night on the news,
another soldier
died in public.
He preferred the newspaper.
It allowed him to imagine
a world
with goodness in it.
Tonight, however, he waited
for the news on TV.
He waited for her
to tell the world about him.
As her image flickered on the screen,
he watched,
transfixed,
and shared a secret knowledge
with her.
She spoke of him
with a tender reed of a voice
and a regal air.
She was his Queen,
and he her loyal subject.
He would fight for her.
He imagined that he was an ancient nobleman,
Fighting a war
for his country
and his Queen.
He wondered
whether the image on the screen
was a fantasy,
until he remembered
that she promised to come to him
after the show.
The news, and the future,
didn’t seem so bleak anymore.
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