We live in a red state now. I try to understand why we voted to try to take away medical coverage for people like me, with pre-existing conditions. At the same time we voted for medical marijuana and increasing the minimum wage and an independent commission to redrawn districts and hopefully reduce gerrymandering. I try to understand why anyone would vote Republican at all. I can’t see the good in it.
Coach Teaching History
He’s lied again.
He knows you never learn
a thing from any past.
His own history
is boredom, sullen kids,
and bills, this classroom
smell of too much perfume,
aftershave, and sweat.
He wants the past to be
a snowstorm keeping
him inside—just him,
his wife, an endless
night. They’d dance,
make love, and find
their bodies new again.
“History is hell,”
he says. The class
looks up. “Go find a job.”
-Jack Ridl