Lois Gallagher
Lois Gallagher lives and writes in Brooklyn with her husband Al Schatz. They have one son named Otto and a cat.
Dear Candidate:
Your incomprehensible disease of motive, of angular wantgeneration by generation removed: the mirror of
exquisite treachery
and lies
no excuse beyond indolence
and a political nature
you rely on the power of your ‘brand’
Your choice has brought us none – only
draw tight the curtains at the window, stand
away from the light. Don’t speak
of predatory desires assuaged by delusion
no more free of moral panic than any other
historic appointment: its offices filled & bustling
the manners of men, their position papers & loud voices know
nothing of the margins, not noting
the figures, their shadows in the crumpled landscape
wilderness and witness both.
The logical course is hardly to continue
to choose what over which or where
does difference lie
in implication we have damage intimidation all history
and those who draw the boundaries over radically scorched earth
the soft facts of a conqueror’s dream hewn in stone.
Dear candidate, I have wandered far &
horror grows I do not have your certainty I
cannot contain…
there are still people, where they live
their dreams
and furious clamor
your willingness to descend into mud
notwithstanding, is mere shadow
an empty suit somehow
essential to the play
full of latencies like Pandora’s box
reconfiguring hope in catastrophe’s aftermath of you
a monster already arrived