A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Elaine Sexton
Sleeve
I finger the cardboard cover
of this cardboard take-out
coffee cup, here to protect
my palm, but what
a waste of a tree,
a life, whittled down
to––this paper,
this pencil, too, this idea
in my calloused hand
with its half-life of bearing
and soothing, folded
under my chin, left into right,
on my lap when not called on
to scratch my back
or pat the dog or touch
a scar where a hot pot scalded
skin, uncovered, the way
the day is born
with no promises. Late light
lances winter tree branches,
trees whose gnarled trunks
stand with old poles
made of Southern yellow
pine, or Douglas fir,
Western red cedar. Oh trees,
oh power lines no longer
needed¬––what utility now?
Now we are wired and
wireless. Wired and tired
I like to say. What else
could we be, living as we do,
as we must––through this.
Elaine Sexton‘s fifth collection of poetry, Site Specific: New & Selected, is forthcoming from Grid Books in 2025. Her poems are widely anthologized and published in journals including American Poetry Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and O! the Oprah Magazine. She is the author of the libretto for The Post Office, a chamber opera in poems, in collaboration with composer Laura Kaminsky, commissioned by Queen City Opera and developed by Opera Fusion: New Works/Cincinnati Opera. Sexton lives in New York and teaches at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
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