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Summer of Poetry: The Village, Without the Plot Twist



I avoid politics
like the people in
The Village
avoided the world.
Do you remember that movie?
With the strange-talking
people dressed in
superstitious colors
hiding from imaginary
monsters of their own design.
The twist wasn't that they lived
hidden in the modern world,
but that they made reality
out of a coping mechanism.
Clinging to an idealized past.
They willfully chose
to live in a fake world
less painful
than the world outside.
And the world outside
with its #metoo
and kids with guns
is no different than theirs.
I don't want it to be real anymore.
I turn off the news
before it begins
and don the color coat
that won't get me killed.

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