[High Praise! to Oppo]

Liberals at Seventeen (to the tune of “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian)

I spurned the truth at seventeen
That “beauty queens” meant beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles
Married young, and then acquired

The valentines I never knew….
The endless Gay Parades of youth
Were spent on morbid useful fools
At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us in our safe spaces
Liking antisocial places
Desperately remained at home
Inventive LARPers on the phone

Who called to say “Come dance with me”
And murmured vague obscenities
At Republicans, alone, it seems
At seventeen.

And brown-eyed girls in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, “Pity, please, the Antifas
They only hate their Ma and Pas.”

And rich-relationed Hollywood queens,
Barely sold in magazines,
And guaranteed to more Weinsteins
Social euthanasia for the over-tweens

Dismember those who win the game
Bruise the love they sought to gain
Indictments, inequality
And dubious integrity

Their small-town eyes will gape at you
in dull surprise when payment’s due
And exceeds the lurid accounts received
By seventeen.

To those of us who knew the pain
Of Sarah Palin’s, Sanders’ names
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for free-for-all

Long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
Even Dems believed we all were free
And ugly ducklings tried to be

We played the game and when we dared
To cheat the voters at solitaire
Invent collusion on the phone
Repeat the other lies unknown

Who called to say “Come dance with me”?
And murmured vague obscenities
At Republicans, alone, it seems
Maybe it was Vogue, or Seventeen.