A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Paula Rudnick
Changed
A Delta jet landed on its roof last week,
hanging passengers upside down like bats
surveying crumbs from their last snack,
their condition changed from light to leaded,
winged to grounded, safe to dangling
at the moment they thought they had arrived.
I did 45 sit-ups this morning—
not bad for a person my age.
My body didn’t ache too much
when I got out of my organic-fiber bed.
The coffee exceptionally good today,
just the right amount of strong,
mellowed by a splash of half-and-half
sipped slowly from an antique floral mug.
The lemon-ginger scone I quick-defrosted
tasted almost like fresh-baked
and the lilies that I bought on sale
yesterday perfumed the air.
No one shot at me when I picked up the newspaper,
dropped at my front door before dawn’s light,
my life unchanged from how it was
a month ago, except nothing’s the same.
Inside my chest a heaviness I can’t cocktail-hour away,
inside my throat a rant ready to spill.
The small blue leatherette passport
I used to flash invincibly makes me lower eyelids
when border guards request my documents now
like in some vintage black and white movie
where things get bad and then there’s no escape
and I am bolted to my seat prepared for impact,
weighing who to call to pledge my love.
Paula Rudnick is the author of the poetry collection Now is Not a Good Time (self-published, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs, LA Jewish Journal and Kosmos Quarterly as well as in the anthologies What We Talk About When We Talk About It Vol. II (Darkhouse Books, 2020), Verdant Truth Serum Vol. 5 (Truth Serum Press, 2019), and The Place Where Everyone’s Name is Fear (Anxiety/Outcast Press, 2022). A former television producer and a mother of two daughters, Rudnick lives in Los Angeles.
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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