by Patricia Barone
for Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman
You are far more influential than you think.
Not thinking makes you far more
influenced yourself,
that’s for sure.
The full content of your heart
is an aneurysm in your brain, ballooning
flatus: You feel and so you influence
Americans, who only want to be
in the warm fluid of us, of US,
we who despise the ones who think
and confront US
with facts,
who stir up
dark people below
who want to have our lives,
destroy our marriages,
with their fluency.
You are. Far more influential than Jesus,
you think you think but you don’t—
you hate, “refudiate,” refuse
to think of the harm
you cause.
Patricia Barone, who expects the No-Nothings to ultimately defeat themselves, has published a book of poetry, Handmade Paper, and a novella, The Wind, with New Rivers Press. Her work recently appeared in The Wind Blows, The Ice Breaks, Poems of Loss and Renewal from Nodin Press. She has received a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in poetry.
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