Rikki Santer
At the Meeting House
after William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 and after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the start of the Senate impeachment trial: We have the votes.
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
hard on for power, wrist deep in the savory
gravy of partisan pie. Articles honed & cast
deep into the well. Logic at full blast,
rhetoric pulsating, then truth tarred & feathered
by Statecraft, taxonomy of hostility, the carnal
musk of four more years. When lust is in the
longing mad in pursuit and in possession so,
joint sessions sour with cardboard comrades,
brackish claims, pungent solicitude.
How to survive the abstraction of nation born
& bred on cruelty & blood, none knows well
to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Capitol’s flag flapping in the gray light of winter.
Rikki Santer is the author In Pearl Broth (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) as well as six previous poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Margie, Hotel Amerika, The American Journal of Poetry, Slab, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Slipstream, Midwest Review and The Main Street Rag, among other publications. Santer lives in Columbus, Ohio. Online at rikkisanter.com
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