poem
Volume 35, Number 4

Great Again

They want to go back
but how far back?

When were the good old days?
Was it when the back

of the bus was the place to sit
if you were Black?

When the odds against a Jew getting into
an Ivy League school were stacked?

When an 8-hour work day
was a dream under attack?

Was it when anyone who marched
or met with the ACLU was tracked

by an FBI with nothing
and no one holding them back?

Exactly how far— the Civil War,
the Revolution, Salem—how far back?


—Phyllis Wax