Stage Two Restrictions

The grass is the color of a shipping box.

The city sent a postcard telling us

to stop loving the green so much.

I turned the kitchen tap this morning

and the water came out gray,

stuttering against the sink.

In the neighbor’s yard, the plastic birdbath

is a dry bowl of dust and dead oak leaves.

Even the sparrows have stopped looking.

We’re all just waiting for the sky

to remember how to do its only job.