The Next Election

Because let us hereby ignore
irrrational, dipshit aversions
to women and news and books.

We the people
who give ourselves great credit
for smiling at a neighbor,
purchasing good life insurance, and
renovating our kitchens,
God truly made us in his image, obvs.

Sitting immobile in front of the screen listening to lies
and persuasion like we have river rocks for rear ends
and fresh baked bread for brains.

Playing to this crowd is a waste of good time.
Playing to this crowd is not how you pick a candidate.

Ergo, Hilary for President in 2020.
She will be old, but we’ll help her.

This is how it’s going to go down:
She announces candidacy in simple speech given at dining room table,
speaking directly to her laptop camera. Bill is
in background making coffee, looking weird and too thin.
Chelsea is breastfeeding a new baby (!) on the sofa, and her face is plastered
with a false, tense smile, those shiny cheeks.

The campaign posters are blue and white
and purple and yellow, with a little light green in the swoosh below the “Rodham”
and several soft orange dots for style.
The slogan is: “IMHO the America that votes
from a place of hope and rational thought and actual information is a great nation.” You can buy t-shirts.

At the debates, she wears her hair in a ponytail, her face bare. She takes a sip of kombucha from a bottle she had
tucked away in the podium. When the question
is especially dumb, she says, “Pass.”

She runs no ads. She goes on no listening tours.
She’s done listening.
She starts to use the word “fuck”
in public, and “For real?” She admits to not understanding music. Sometimes she wears pantsuits, sometimes tube tops.

More Republican congressmen burst like
meat confetti, too indignant to go on living under the
intense pressure of her not giving a fuck.
Everybody votes. She wins.

Like never before, processes are cloaked
In layers of competence.
As in the old days, it’s hard to contemplate
All that goes into properly governing
And only a very few adults dare
Aspire to the job, which is less
About gold braid and limousines and salutes
Than it is about careful drafting of policy
Deft seduction of foreign minds
The occasional frisson of a dirty punchline at a cabinet meeting, her big guffaw. Keeping track of a million details.
But back to business folks, back to work.