Tuesday, February 14, 2017

POETS IN MOURNING

by Kate Carey




We scoured the world,
searching for bits that were not broken.
We find everyone is broken
and everyone is reaching for that bottle of glue.

The day after the election, my sister
called me at work and I found shelter
in a supply closet
so we could loudly openly weep,
mourning for our futures,
faces drowning in tears,
throats bubbling with absolute terror.
We were trying to make sense of a world that didn’t make sense.

I texted every black woman I loved,
every white woman I loved,
my half-Cuban, half-‘rican best friend, my sister, my husband.
I reached out, showing where the thornprick bled red
“I hurt.” They clasped back “Us too.”

If our hurt were electoral votes, that
mother fucker’d be obliterated.

A magazine article titled ‘Edible Philly.’
And how now our country looks like a
tasty morsel
on a gleaming plate
for this conglomerous king.

We’ve elected an angry hairpiece to lead us,
gave a tyrant access to our vulnerabilities.
Let us set fire to the idea that dissent is not an option.


Kate Carey is a 20-something who writes while she’s supposed to be doing other things. Her day job is not very interesting but her life is beginning to be. She has had one poem published in Dying Dahlia Review. She lives in Philly with her parents and resents she had to say that part at all.