Setting: The back of a local breakfast spot
Surrounded by rural Vermont beauty.
I am standing, talking to a friend
By a picnic table
Where my wife and my friend's wife
Are talking,
When I see this old guy (roughly my age)
Coming from the parking lot
With his coffee
About to disappear
Around the side of the photogenic gift barn
That is covered by a mass
Of flowering trumpet vines.
On his sweatshirt
In big capital letters: USA.
Right then my consciousness splits
Right down the middle.
I am responding to my friend
Normally enough
That he doesn't seem to notice
That the other half of my attention
Is on that old man in the sweatshirt.
I want to go over and ask him,
Why?
Why are you advertising your country?
What do those 3 letters mean to you?!
But if I asked him and he responded,
Would I listen patiently? No,
Because I think I know what he would say
And I've heard it a million times before.
Or, does it even matter to him
What his sweatshirt says?!
Is he wearing it just because it's
On the cool side today?
Or because it's been washed so many times
He likes how it fits, loose and comfortable,
So who cares what it shouts?
Or is he just a typical old chauvinist?
I want to go over and tell him
That he just ruined my day!
Not simply because I am upset
By his cretin fashion statement,
There is more to it,
Much more.
I feel like a fish
Caught by the the hook of his nescient,
Misguided, ethnocentric / nationalistic,
One-tracked, simple-minded
Reactionary, retrogressive, probably sexist
Passively racist, passive-aggressive
Close-fisted, patriotic / chauvinistic . . .
(breathe)
In short, he is my shadow!
And because he is my shadow
I will be living with him in my head
For the next few days
Until I figure out what I am projecting on him
That makes him so powerful
That I have to write this really bad poem
About him
Walking from the parking lot
About to disappear
Around the side of the gift barn
That is covered by a mass
Of flowering trumpet vines . . .
(Article changed on Sep 11, 2021 at 9:09 AM EDT)
(Article changed on Sep 11, 2021 at 12:14 PM EDT)
