No more silence as we are being forced—
no more hiding, no waiting
for the drunken boys to leave the room
so we can sneak egress,
no more young men pinballing down the stairs,
careening to Yale and good careers,
leaving broken girls in their wake.
No, the messiness of us is ready,
with all our procreation and menstruation,
our breast milk dripping,
about to fill the Senate floors and occupy the seats.
Let the aging, suited men turn red.
Let them shout and rant and cry on live TV.
They’ve taken their playlist from a president
who teaches how to hate,
but the world laughs,
knows that soon they’ll fall,
like Humpty Dumpties, from their unbuilt wall.
In the Senate elevator, after his benighted vote,
Flake’s trapped with three young women—
unquiet survivors, ready to ignite.
READ MORE
Jeff Flake confronted by two female protesters after announcing he’ll back Kavanaugh [CNN]
Trump agrees to open ‘limited’ F.B.I. investigation into accusations against Kavanaugh [New York Times]
Jeff Flake’s limited resistance [New Yorker]
Laura Foley’s books are WTF (WordTech, 2017) Night Ringing ( Headmistress Press 2016), Joy Street (Headmistress Press 2014), The Glass Tree (Harbor Mountain Press 2012). Her work has won the Common Good Books poetry contest, the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, The Atlanta Review Grand Prize, Foreword Review Poetry Prize and others. Her poems have appeared widely in journals and magazines. A palliative care volunteer in hospitals, with an M.A. and a M. Phil. in English Lit. from Columbia University, she lives with her wife and their two dogs among the hills of Vermont.
