Decency, Modesty, Integrity, Even-handedness, and Excellence

for Merrick Garland, nominee to the Supreme Court

As a boy he made it through one Cub Scout meeting.

All the other kids had names like Derrick,

Toby, James; their dads had names like Merrick,

Russel, Palmer. Jewy Jacob’s fleeting

and failed efforts at befriending, then competing

with these flaxen youth? Loss. At best, a pyrrhic

win: to later tell real friends satiric

versions in which he quits; he’s not retreating

into buck-toothed shyness. Years after, tall

now, orthondtized, fit, and proudly queer,

still he feels a twinge when some vampiric

preppy is proposed as someone all

right-thinking people must support, mere

acceptability as panegyric.