We chat about the weather, the high price of gas, the big win last night, who’s doing what to whom.
We don’t chat about our failing children, our oversized debt, our crushing depression and panic attacks.

We answer our phones, e-mails, our texts. We bring in the junk mail, the groceries, the dogs and cats.
We ignore the surrounding decay, the the worried looks, the angry chatter, the trigger-happy sensitivity.

Mirror images writ large on the landscape. Slithery snakes in boorish human clothing. Eyes glazed with evil.
We’ve become inured to the banal desecration of all that we held dear, forever and ever amen. God help us all.