by Cecil Morris
Many people, of course, feel America is broken. You can hear about the country’s many troubles—its ideological divides, its anger, its lack of civility—from conservatives and liberals, from socialist firebrands and evangelical preachers, from Democrats and Republicans. It is, perhaps, one of the few beliefs that unites Americans right now. So many seem to genuinely want those divides to be mended, for the country to be knitted back together. But the question of why America is broken, and who is to blame, and how to repair it? That’s where things get complicated. —Tim Sullivan, AP, September 13, 2025
In the choose-your-own-adventure America,
you get to choose which expert to believe,
which news source delivers the truth to eyes and ears,
which problem needs solution and which solution
you like best and think will work and ought, therefore,
be funded beyond your wildest ability
to count the cents one by one in your little life.
So close your eyes and jump to page 47,
the just say no, the walls and cages, the answer
that puts ever more troops and officers and masks
on your streets, the security of surveillance,
of armed patrols—here, there, and everywhere. Or jump
to page 76 and guns for everyone
and self-defense in every hand and every home.
Or turn to page 2021: the moment
we decide which police we must obey
and which we must overrun to guarantee our rights.
Or, maybe, see what happens when we choose that page
where we realize that schools and social services
are less expensive than prisons or where we build
villages of tiny homes for our veterans
unhoused and struggling instead of casting them,
so much chaff, to streets and parks, to make-shift tents,
where they like dandelions can sprout in the cracks.
Which America will we choose for our families?
you get to choose which expert to believe,
which news source delivers the truth to eyes and ears,
which problem needs solution and which solution
you like best and think will work and ought, therefore,
be funded beyond your wildest ability
to count the cents one by one in your little life.
So close your eyes and jump to page 47,
the just say no, the walls and cages, the answer
that puts ever more troops and officers and masks
on your streets, the security of surveillance,
of armed patrols—here, there, and everywhere. Or jump
to page 76 and guns for everyone
and self-defense in every hand and every home.
Or turn to page 2021: the moment
we decide which police we must obey
and which we must overrun to guarantee our rights.
Or, maybe, see what happens when we choose that page
where we realize that schools and social services
are less expensive than prisons or where we build
villages of tiny homes for our veterans
unhoused and struggling instead of casting them,
so much chaff, to streets and parks, to make-shift tents,
where they like dandelions can sprout in the cracks.
Which America will we choose for our families?
Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.
