Believe me, I believe you, candidate of order

law-breaking, shackles-off, hair-raising border-

line Mexican criminal deals made in China,

You do strike a chord with the random vagina

 

grabbing at truth as it plays on the news

high-wired penthouses trapping your muse

inspiring violence, hatred and dirt

slinging it back for a hot mini-skirt

 

But riddle me this: How do regular folk

watch you shoot from the hip just to swallow your joke?

Befuddled, bewildered, bewitched I am not

singing your praises or stirring your pot

of golden-white towers from armies of men

Ready, Aim      Fired

to tax us     again

 

that second amendment my first-born should know

arms boys to be boys for stones that they throw

shatter glass ceilings, break family heart,

wrongs are not rights, they’re rites torn apart

 

Let’s dig through the mud and bury the lead

God help us, brave homeland,

this sweet land of need

 

*

 

Heather Newman studies at The New School (NYC.) Her work has appeared in Two Hawks Quarterly, New Verse News, The Potomac Journal, Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop, E-Chook and will appear this spring in Aji Magazine and Voices From Here, Vol. II (Paulinskill poetry anthology.)