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This report is immediately followed by a curious paragraph in which Simic speaks of the danger of "such sweeping statements" as he has just made—after all, consider the exhibition of Baroque art he attended at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion—but with no follow-up, no indication where his summary judgment might be in error, and indeed he concludes the essay by once again summoning the specter of those joyless "protectors of virtue" whose theocratic ambitions he has already laid bare.

I don't know if I should let Simic and his NYRB readers in on our secret. You know what I mean—that the situation for them is far worse than they imagine. After all, those hellfire Christians he encountered in the South are pretty easy to identify as the enemy. But we Protestant evangelicals are wise as serpents. Some of us are double agents. We learn to speak the language of culture, to penetrate the networks of the soon-to-be-damned. Simic might bump into us at a concert or a poetry reading, where we sip Starbucks and speak easily of Neruda and pretend that we believe in cause and effect. All the while, of course, we're thinking to ourselves who will be the first to go when the theocratic revolution finally comes.

Be afraid, Charles Simic. Be very afraid.

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