conversations with cardboard barack

1.
you are propped up like a campaign smile
next to my mother’s fireplace. i contemplate
poking a hole in your paper teeth to watch
scared shitless pour out all over our hardwood floors.

2.
did you see the shrines?
she made the most beautiful shrines with glitter
and flags and your face glued like crucifixion
to each altar of Hope.

3.
i signed up for the recession today. i crumbled
up my travel plans, my Be Free In My RV plans,
threw them in the fire and warmed my toes with
their milk and honey smoke. i have a good job
afterall. who am i to be leaping around all faithful like
when there are people cashing their last unemployment
checks and you are holding a press conference in the desert,
your stone tablet blueprints heavy under your arm.

4.
my daughter says you should be president because
a president should be smart and handsome and because
you look kind of like her daddy. she doesn’t like how your
eyes follow her around the living room though.

5.
we are shopping for a cardboard Michelle. we can’t afford
to go out anymore so for entertainment we will cut
designer outfits from construction paper and tape them
to Michelle for each holiday. when we need to remember
that everything is going to be alright, we will bump your fists
together and play songs about change.

6.
i know you saw me crying. every now and then when i realize
you are actually our president, history comes crashing
down on my shoulders and i sob like the time i told my daughter
that only 40 years ago her father and i would have been felons
for marrying outside of our race. like the time the hundred year
old woman told the story about picking cotton to earn the poll tax
to vote for Franklin Roosevelt. i sob like Progress is no longer
just a poster hanging on our wall.

7.
my mother refuses to put you in the recycle bin. even after
the inauguration, she keeps you standing next to the
year-round christmas tree. she says after 8 years of heartbreak
and embarrassment she needs to see you every morning while
drinking her coffee and selling off the last of the shrines on eBay.