Morning Paper on Rye Road

A sense of action: the thud on the mat, you open
the door, show your spiky hair and rumpled
pyjamas with virtuous sangfroid, carry
Dagsavisen and Klassekampen back to bed.

They rustle, scrunch up, flap a wing
over your bowl of coffee, you smear marmalade
on the comic strip you had planned to cut out
for the fridge door. The bed linen smudges
from fresh print but you still feel in control:
you are doing something
real about the world’s problems: you don’t stare
helplessly at an online edition, or listen
to the news on the bedside radio.

You are hands on, get to grips with President Bush
in his latest denials, prop bird flu against your knees,
leaf quickly past car crashes, tear out a story
on Germany’s Audubon. Iran should maybe
be allowed to proceed under your coffee rings,
you spill crumbs on Prodi’s face.

That evening, you wrap a broken
whisky glass in Politiken
to protect the trash collector from injury.