by Adele Evershed
I Google the name of the new White House
Press Secretary—Karoline Leavitt—
and find she’s young—27,
the youngest press secretary in history.
This, and the fact she is a woman doing a difficult job,
should make me like her,
so I start to listen.
Her manner is abrasive,
like a loofah on your ear,
rubbing my skin the wrong way.
But sometimes an album is more than its cover,
so I persevere.
She cycles through her talking points:
Egg prices—blame sleepy Joe Biden,
Trump’s visit to North Carolina—
like the hand of God.
a plane crashing—DEI policies.
Round and round,
like a malevolent Barbie News Anchor.
All the while the cross at her throat
bops about virtue signaling
like a protest outside an abortion clinic,
‘I’m only doing what Jesus wants.’
But on someone who has no virtue,
it’s just another fashion accessory,
the same as Madonna’s
when she sang, ‘Like a Virgin’
(and Karoline—definitely no virgin,
married a man 32 years her senior,
had a baby six months after the wedding—just saying).
Her fake smile is as nauseating,
as her ‘Make America Blonde Again' t-shirt.
Then she tweets about education—
how it should only clothe a child
in those below the knee old fashions—
Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic
AND NOTHING ELSE.
As a teacher I think—
maybe she has a point
because if she knew her ABCs,
she’d spell Karoline with a C.
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who now lives in America. You can find some of her work in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press), The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press) and an upcoming chapbook, In the Belly of the Wail, with Querencia Press.
Press Secretary—Karoline Leavitt—
and find she’s young—27,
the youngest press secretary in history.
This, and the fact she is a woman doing a difficult job,
should make me like her,
so I start to listen.
Her manner is abrasive,
like a loofah on your ear,
rubbing my skin the wrong way.
But sometimes an album is more than its cover,
so I persevere.
She cycles through her talking points:
Egg prices—blame sleepy Joe Biden,
Trump’s visit to North Carolina—
like the hand of God.
a plane crashing—DEI policies.
Round and round,
like a malevolent Barbie News Anchor.
All the while the cross at her throat
bops about virtue signaling
like a protest outside an abortion clinic,
‘I’m only doing what Jesus wants.’
But on someone who has no virtue,
it’s just another fashion accessory,
the same as Madonna’s
when she sang, ‘Like a Virgin’
(and Karoline—definitely no virgin,
married a man 32 years her senior,
had a baby six months after the wedding—just saying).
Her fake smile is as nauseating,
as her ‘Make America Blonde Again' t-shirt.
Then she tweets about education—
how it should only clothe a child
in those below the knee old fashions—
Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic
AND NOTHING ELSE.
As a teacher I think—
maybe she has a point
because if she knew her ABCs,
she’d spell Karoline with a C.
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who now lives in America. You can find some of her work in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press), The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press) and an upcoming chapbook, In the Belly of the Wail, with Querencia Press.
