Sitting on the Fence - Sept 20 2024

 

Sitting on the Fence

Sept 20 2024

Chain link

topped with razor wire.

Perhaps electrified,

and too high off the ground

to hop down lightly

or clamber easily up.

Or less forbiddingly

built for privacy;

solid wood

looming high overhead,

gate chained shut.

Better yet

a white picket fence

around a modest bungalow

and its small plot of grass;

an unassuming claim

on my piece suburbia.

But in a world this complex

there’s no simple divide,

no bright line

between two sides.

And it doesn’t take long

until sitting on the fence

in indecision

begins to hurt,

its precarious edge

digging in

to your sorry posterior.

Not like back in the day,

when flagpole sitters

lasted for months,

and marathoners

danced ’til they slumped

in each other’s arms

asleep on their feet.

I look out

through galvanized mesh,

uncertain

whether it’s keeping them at bay

or me in.

Because chain link, in gunmetal steel

has the carceral feel

of a car impound lot

or stingy prison yard,

an asylum

for the criminally insane

where every door is locked.

Of course, I could hop it any day.

Or, like the flagpole sitter

balance there,

gazing out from the heights

at a binary world

and choosing sides.

Because what could put one more at ease

than on or off

in or out

them or us?

When the choice is between a middle-of-the road Democrat and Donald Trump, I find it hard to believe that there can be any fence-sitters left: the undecided voters who, apparently, will decide the 2024 Presidential election.

I also recently installed a tall chain link fence around my house (dogs!), and still have my qualms about its institutional look and feel (although no razor wire or electrification!)

So I suppose a coming together of these two things is where the poem began. And ultimately, it’s about the black and white worldview of the demagogic populist: one that divides the native born from the foreigner; the regular folk from the elites; the ins from the outs and the us from the them.