To Be Elected

Hard Choices

Your mean-lipped turtle mouth snaps:
‘Let’s talk about politics,
do you agree with me?’
Beneath your cold heart I hear
you gather your hard-earnt eggs,
shuffle them out of strangers’ sight.

Your hard-nosed need still shows
itself by sniffing at people
who haven’t kept their eggs so close,
whose shells have been turned over
so they lie now, legs in the air
helpless unless someone rights them.

You are rigid with resentment
that they’re fed just as they are,
when you’d flip them over to forage
for themselves, yet hard cases
are often damaged, can’t stand alone,
not clever and not listened to, like you.

You believe I’m a hypocrite,
lofty principles balanced on
the right way up ease
my inherited shell affords me,
but you bite your lip, stretch to a smile
in your hunger to be elected.