by Brian O’Sullivan
You can’t beat that in a court of law, a gray-
bearded lawyer said to Archie Bunker, citing
a venerable adage of the bar, when Archie’s
whiplash suit ran afoul of just such
a station wagon. Those station wagon witnesses
were childless, one presumes, but they were not frivolous,
in the culture’s eyes; instead, they were taken as models
of probity. Who knows if that was correct? Maybe
one of them had run a Magdalene laundry
before coming to Queens, or helped a predatory
priest cover his tracks while she wielded a ruler
to swat down unruly Queens kids.
But maybe another gently slid a bowl
of milk in front of a starving kitten, or gently
held the hand of a single mother in labor.
Maybe, in their station wagon, they were talking about
their service, and about the futures of the people whom
they served. But now a senator tells us that
the childless have no direct stake in the future.
And I want to ask what happened to make
him believe that we can only care about
that which belongs to us, and not about
the station wagon to which we all belong.
"We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too," Vance said. "How does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" he asked.
bearded lawyer said to Archie Bunker, citing
a venerable adage of the bar, when Archie’s
whiplash suit ran afoul of just such
a station wagon. Those station wagon witnesses
were childless, one presumes, but they were not frivolous,
in the culture’s eyes; instead, they were taken as models
of probity. Who knows if that was correct? Maybe
one of them had run a Magdalene laundry
before coming to Queens, or helped a predatory
priest cover his tracks while she wielded a ruler
to swat down unruly Queens kids.
But maybe another gently slid a bowl
of milk in front of a starving kitten, or gently
held the hand of a single mother in labor.
Maybe, in their station wagon, they were talking about
their service, and about the futures of the people whom
they served. But now a senator tells us that
the childless have no direct stake in the future.
And I want to ask what happened to make
him believe that we can only care about
that which belongs to us, and not about
the station wagon to which we all belong.
"We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too," Vance said. "How does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" he asked.
Brian O'Sullivan teaches English at St. Mary's College of Maryland. His poems have been published at The New Verse News, Rattle, ONE ART, HOWL, and other journals. He is a reader for Chestnut Review.