prospects / hope’s hues
cast to black
as a solar eclipse
cozened England
he, grim-grinned and sooty,
fingered his ashen cat’s cradle
flashed his hokum hand / perverted
cosmic strings
wound
between his twitching
wick(ed) fingers

then these things happened:

1.a terminal cancer victim was awarded 289 million in a Roundup lawsuit, the first to nail the weed killer manufacturer
2.a Seattle airline employee stole a plane and flew away; proclaimed he had “a screw loose” over the cockpit radio; crashed with fighter jets in pursuit
3.Melania Trump advertised for volunteers to decorate the White House for Christmas
4.writer V. S. Naipaul, 85, died in London of unknown causes
5.a solar eclipse hit London at 10:55 a.m.
6.M checked into a hotel at 11:00 a.m.
7.a rookie cop lifted his stiff body into an apartment attic searching for her
8.a female cop scaled a tall iron fence in a small English town
9.a stranger in a faraway country lit a candle for M in a Catholic parish church
10.people around the world prayed for healing, for prosperity, for groceries, for forgiveness
11.M died in a hotel at an undisclosed time, 47 years old