No-brainer | Jay Barnica

It was very late in the game,
and given the considerable risks associated
with unisex cotton t-shirts,
many of the factions present
were prepared to admit
that the bible study group had,
in fact, run aground.
This is not romanticism.

The widening gulf between
questions about how and what we know
required now a degree of prudence.
Our ideological aversion to unsettlement
no longer fit the bill, even though
we could never know this for sure.
Why would we want to?
Let’s play a quick game, class:
list everything new under the sun.
Think cloud-based collaboration.
Think even bigger.

Thankfully, the story can now be told
on a planetary scale,
with everyone else facing
the measure, manner, time and place,
as if we weren’t warned.
To me, it’s a no-brainer.

Jay Barnica teaches freshman composition, tutors college writers, and writes poetry in central Pennsylvania. He has poems published or forthcoming in Unlost and The Florida Review.