The Kennedys

The senator's son wasn't supposed to tell
anyone his mother and father were drunks
he loved. Like you and me, he was the secret
they counted on, to hold things in.
What's a family for, if not to vote for itself?
I had proof of this in my living room,
that voting box. And today, outside, watching
the turkeys wobbling around
October's drops, the apples fermenting
inside their skins.
Yellow jackets and bees drilling
into their tapped kegs. Stinging whatever
they can, not telling anyone who they're
voting for. Confusing isn't it, how a little
of something can become too much?
How there's a Kennedy in each of us,
we can't be reluctant to say, now that his son
has said it, too. And it isn't a shame
the turkeys don't know when they've had
too much and need us to shoo them away.