This is a poem about the McCarthy hysteria.
It's called "On When McCarthy Was a Wolf Among a Nation
of Queer-Queers."
At 30 when the faiths give out and all the pleasures of light
and air go gray along with love, well I
began to play the game, assumption of faiths,
and took up spiritual hobbies.
God, sport, and country were not enough for one American.
So I became a joiner lapsing from the faith.
May whiskey, money, and analysis survive me
through committee days.
And may the night yield sex, in whose release
whole moments passed.
As for the rest, left-left politics was out of law.
So I read books and bit my thumbnails
to the quick, and false despair--
I'm still here.