There are so many benefits to a title that’s brief in its statement. Is Franklin K. R. Cline saying, “Fools,” in a movie tone of voice. Like when Felonius Gru talks about something his minions did wrong, even with the best of intentions, and he says, “Fools.” Or is the grocery store where this poem takes place a box full of fools, including the poet, who’s going to be thinking about his cat’s dietary tastes, using the language of a consumer, on one hand (a fancy looking salmon dinner, my dear?) and then the language that would better suit her (a dinner flavored like the hair on your back, my dear?).
And, you know, it’s America. So there’s also the kind of fool who’s wearing a t-shirt telling the world God must hate America because there are gay people in it. And it’s this juxtaposition, the common “fool” that might be present in both poet and t-shirt wearer, while also accounting for the violence registered in the t-shirt that the wearer might or might not fully own up to. In America, we don’t know but we pretend to know, or we’re just so certain we’d like to know what our purchases are doing for us, how what they say about us is something we’d like to think is certainly true, to a degree. The poet and what informs his cat food choices says something about him. The t-shirt wearer, too?
Maybe just “guesswork” should be the degree that certainty really exists, though. Like “I guess” in that way we say “I know” in conversation, but with some tentativeness to it. Cline is doing that. Cline is that tone of voice in your head. That knows how much an idiot the guy is for wearing a t-shirt to make “a political statement,” but then realizes that everyone is an idiot for doing anything. “just / like me i am god-flavored another one // of the drooling fools waiting in line.” Buying “salmon-flavored” cat food. How would his cat even know the difference, a fool would finally ask himself. And, though the poet doesn’t push too hard at this, how would this t-shirt wearer have any idea about God’s views on America? Or God’s abilities to create an America in God’s image if what was eventually made was a country filled with boxes of fools.
There are so many other great poems in this issue of FENCE!