a wish list
by Bonnie Proudfoot in collaboration with Betsy Mars
We want a president who moves in down the street,
spends a week or two. Even if we live in Flint, NOLA,
Hindman, Gallop, Butte, or the Bronx.
Who stands at the feet of a chalk line
around victims of gun violence and weeps
with families, friends, neighbors of the slain.
Who Faces the Nation and Meets the Press,
This Week and other weeks as well.
Who flies Southwest economy class,
rides the F train, buys local, birdwatches,
who saves the spotted owl, the monarch butterfly
the spotted salamander and the gopher frog.
Who celebrates the 4th of July with poetry.
Who protects women who want to bring babies
Into the world and defends women who don't,
stands up for anyone facing gender-based rage,
who nurtures babies and spends time with children,
not to teach them how to grow up faster
but to teach herself how to imagine more.
Who pays taxes, declares gifts, keeps promises,
learns other languages, uses them.
Who opens the White House doors to heads of
non-profits and legal aid groups, to teachers,
911 dispatchers, brain surgeons, rocket scientists,
actors, musicians, dancers, artists, farmworkers,
bridge builders, smoke jumpers, border guards,
police, soldiers, not just to donors or glitterati
Who recycles the plastic she picks up
on shorelines and riverbeds. Who puts
solar panels on the roof of the White House and
charges her EV fleet. Who walks or bikes.
Who calls out sulfur leaching through creeks,
fish floating belly up in lakes and rivers,
the scraped-off mountaintops of Appalachia
and all abominations to earth in the name of profit
Whose compassion breaks us open.
Whose gravity weighs on us. Whose hope
holds us steady. Who laughs her ample laugh
shakes her womanly hips, hoists her groceries
in an NPR tote bag, asks too many questions,
dreams bigger than we ever could.
Who sits with Native American elders,
holds an ear to the earth
and listens.
Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, a photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. whose poems can be found in numerous online journals and print anthologies. She has two books, Alinea, and In the Muddle of the Night, co-written with Alan Walowitz. Betsy is currently and sporadically working on a full-length manuscript titled Rue Obscure.
Bonnie Proudfoot writes fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays. Her novel, Goshen Road (OU/ Swallow Press) received WCONA’s Book of the Year and was Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway. Her 2022 poetry chapbook, Household Gods, can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig editions, along with a forthcoming book of short stories, Camp Probable. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.