Winter's Discontent
I straighten crooked-hanging paintings on plaster walls
where cracks resemble intricate
spiderweb stitches
wish balanced
logic
would
come
to those
clinging to
falsehoods like orphans
who insist that their backstories
revealed would compromise security in a land
neo-Nazis run roughshod ore common decency,
humility, and compassion,
then swear that hatred
nurtures true
grit and
drills
real
kindred
values in
a land officials
treat violence with faux prayers
champion ownership of automatic weapons.
