Evil
       

I hear there's evil in countries beginning with I,
as in the domain of the self,
the house of the id, the former
an actual place, the latter
a bunch of smaller versions
of the same ruination. So I wonder
how someone could stick a sticker
like Hate Evil on his bumper,
then sideswipe someone else with it,
that someone else wondering,
aside from You hypocrite:
one, Doesn't doing the former
mean you are the latter?
and two, Does either word
mean anything? each possibility
suspended in the mind
like Evel Knievel's Skycycle
over the flattened cars below,
his stars and stripes cape
flapping with a blind certainty,
that forward momentum alone
will stick the landing. Too bad
for the firstborn, I thought
when I saw my husband in the hospital
stand hands on hips over the bassinet
the night our son was born.
I saw a new father
swoon over his son. But I saw, too,
the husband scowl at the intruder.

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Copyright © 2017 Valerie Bandura All rights reserved
from Human Interest
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission