47th President Poem: Metastatic, by Matt Pasca

After the election, I bow low in Sajdah

beneath the architecture of all I have read
skylit stairwells of spines, cathedrals of testimony—

& weep

As a docent for the National Memorial of Facts
I flash my light over history’s headstones, their letters
fading in a whiteout wind

His hair flares like a matchstick over a fuse

I offer my skin to undocumented families
craft my words into rape kits & purchase
1,460 vivacious hijabs, one for each day of his term

I become a tireless rim beneath the weight

Occasionally, some beauty reminds me
to raid sorrow with a pen, radiate old tumors

enflamed by the gaslighter-in-chief, crime
boss at hallway’s end, past the kitchen

supplies & MRI tubes, a malignancy
born of a million careful lies we’ve been

programmed to ignore & call our own