If this is January

January is the slow, quiet time of year
when we sit back and relax
after the rush of the Christmas season
and bask in the sun, warming our backs
and eating sweet oranges.

Not a time when crime explodes in our faces:
When young men go missing
and their bloated, blackened corpses are found
and skinny young dark men arrested
and charged nine long days later.
When carnage runs wild, free as blood
as crazed men burst into houses
and slash you to death with
a butcher's knife,
when in a family of six,
five coffins are lined up
the next day.
And on the streets and social media,
church-going people bay for
vengeance and retribution
and of taking the law into their hands.

If this is January
slow, quiet January
I dread what summer will bring.