In some sense, both sides are right, both sides are wrong,
and, in the bifurcated politics
of urban genderqueers and rural hicks,
of fetal stem cell bans and legal bongs,
of floury tiktok wives and boys in thongs,
in this American moment: nothing sticks;
the self-destruct device’s timer ticks
toward zero hour, and the nearing thundering song
of risen oceans lapping Appalachian
foothills murmur in our dreams, and wake, and speak:
human failing or God’s grim judgment day?
Reason, duty, kindness? Fickle fashion.
Fairness compels: in equal measure seek
to talk too much with nothing at all to say.
Jacob Bacharach 