We are all sinister little experts at this
after years of ranking and awarding big fish.
It’s the muscle of classification
and it is most deadly
when we place ourselves in its net.
Pros and cons, support for and against,
rationalizing trophies in the ceaseless,
changing tides. A fetish of winners
and losers, all swashbucklers and shipwrecks
and decks of bloody, cold meat.
This is what drives us to swim in circles
and into the mouths of sharks.
I had a logic teacher once who said
if the result of your pros and cons makes you sad,
just go with your gut then.