Pre-Election Poem

​       and yet there will be tea
and a little time left to 
kiss or forgive in whispers
no matter if the machete is 
slid letter-like under the door
on Tuesday 
no matter if we are reduced to 
boiling chicory and propping a two-
by- four under the doorknob. 
      that I have escaped without a
smashed head in this
quiet life for so long, have made
sweaty love and placed my
jugular on the kind June grass
such a blessing, the reassuring 
ladders of mountains the sting
of salt on my lip, the ripening
of watermelons, how red they
were inside, juicy as love too
large for even the Takers to
cart off, when the carting off
commences, such power 
       how a single memory allows me to 
drink the wild bitter root, forgive 
the numbest scar, pack dreams 
away in the old suitcase like a 
sold-out insurance salesman
pass through the dust, the sound 
of wheels shattering, the prophesied
gnashing, none of that matters
Tuesday will be a small thing 
in the arms of my life smaller than
a warm cup of tea or the 
the hint of your kiss, which 
by the way still knocks me over
like a gunshot.
​