The other state of the union:

A family friend assisting in rebuilding efforts in Mississippi returned last week to report that in the county where he’s been working, the only thing that is functional is the casino. The casino is open for business but surrounded by devastation, debris-strewn beaches and roads, flattened homes and schools.

I overhear an adult man sounding out a word he’s reading on a T-shirt I am standing near.. G-G-Genesis? Guinness, his wife corrects, it’s a beer.

Most or all of the third graders at one of the schools I used to visit as a poet-in-residence had heard gunfire outside their homes, were required to stay indoors because playing outside was unsafe, knew to avoid the older kids at the park down the street and to scatter when they started “having words.”

**

Observation made while watching the intermittently bored and self-congratulatory audience of legislators..
“..the preponderance of comb-overs. That’s evidence you’re living in a bubble.”