"1988" by Lachlan Mackinnon

In the last full year of the second Reagan
administration, all seemed setting fair
for freedom. Noble dreams were coming true.

Zeks were trekking homeward from the camps
in their first fours and fives to find what faces
waited in villages now parts of cities.

From Petersburg to Vladivostok, troubled
small people were enjoying making trouble
for the brute, the berk and the bureaucrat.

They would soon learn about insurance scams,
the speed with which poems give way to porn,
the greed that keeps the market cycle turning,

but this was spring in Europe, cleaning house
with windows open to the songs of birds.
I’m grateful to have lived at such a time

and sorry truth exacts that I add this:
eighty-eight was also the last full year
of the red threat that kept our bankers honest.

Finally, somebody who understood it all.