The Past and its Addictions

The shame of the liberal:
Will justice suffice
for a heart that knows but itself?

What Haitian relief fund is worthy of my change?

The conservative's fear:
Could the thing that delivers
from evil be evil itself?

Babies must be sacrificed—it's the only way.

The loneliness of the moderate:
Will I be abandoned
for having an opinion myself?

I just wish my son wasn't gay.

The critiques are all of the excesses.
We all have the same goals in our blood.
We all can traverse the continuum;
We all know to balance right and wrong

Until we get to that memory
where a heart that is somewhere inside of us
breaks.