It was 1956.
The furniture was clean because it was wrapped in plastic.
It was good.
We’d won the public wars, and god was on our side.
The psychologist testified that Batman was gay for Robin,
And the madman from Wisconsin became an assassin from a committee chair.
All the right people knew their places in society,
And most everybody could hide from what they feared,
Or use the power of their privilege to dominate the landscape.
Children put their hands on their hearts to worship the waving graven image,
Almost as if they hadn’t borne witness to Charleton Heston being told what was what by
Cecil B. DeMille’s animated flames.
The nation’s deity was named on the dollar bill, and oaths were forced upon the flock.
The red menace was a red herring, but no one wanted to imagine
That George Washington was a burner of villages.
Rome marginalized its Barbarians,
But they cultivated their patience, and nurtured their righteous rage.
Perhaps the greatest achievement was the TV dinner.
It’s 2018.
The pruned mouths of grey-haired old white men
Want to make America great again.