by Joanne Durham
in honor of Kamala Harris
Laughter floats across borders.
Laughter releases bitterness from my tongue.
Is it a crazy laugh or laughter for a crazy world?
You can tell a lot by a laugh*.
Laughter doesn’t need to sit at the head of the table.
You can’t bulldoze laughter.
Laughter loosens clenched fists.
Laugh me into your fear. Who laughs alone?
Infinite peals of laughter fit on the head of a pin.
Rain of laughter bathes a breathless sky.
Belly laughter lightens the mind.
Children aching from laughter never forget that joy.
A woman’s laughter sings, I am more than sorrow.
If laughter is a cackle, please, bewitch us.
*Comment by Harris’s Republican opponent in the 2024 Presidential election.
Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books 2023). She lives in the swing state of North Carolina where laughter is an important part of keeping up the fight.