by Phyllis Wax
The piece of spinach stuck between two of my teeth
cries out for extrication and I remember
Nancy Pelosi as she sat behind the president
during his State of the Union message.
He spoke and she listened, and we at home watched
the intermittent movement in her cheek
as her hidden tongue poked. Was food stuck
in her teeth? Or, maybe, as she listened,
something got caught in her craw.
Phyllis Wax keeps up with the news in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she is not sailing up the Niger on her way to Timbuktu or trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.