Welcome to the broken season: a spike
in suicides, depression, colds and flu,
when the good ship Family struggles like
an old, creaky schooner with sea-sick crew
pitched and tossed by a faceless force jealous
of things that float. Welcome to the broken
season; the annual, fevered gold rush
that whispers wealth inexhaustible then
shouts out a deep and widespread scarcity.
Welcome, Saviour, to the malls, the landfills,
the foodbanks, the psych wards, the pharmacies,
stocked up with sugar-coated coping-pills.
That you should come to this is nothing new:
brokenness has always attracted you.