Ace in the Hole
by Kim Bridgford
The audience did not like the cynicism,
But preferred to dwell inside romanticism.
How could America be based on this,
Delay for profit, voyeurism, loss?
Of course, these things were real, but lost beneath
The optimism trading smiles for teeth.
Who wouldn’t rather see us all together
Than be a circus hankering to gather?
Yet now it’s hard to see hyperbole,
And we’re not bothered, only wonder why
The viewers thought the stakes were just too high.
Who wouldn’t be a sell-out? we now say,
And in our hearts we have to rearrange
The parts of us, like weeds, that have grown strange.
