by Nan Ottenritter
after “The Day Lady Died,” a lunch poem by Frank O'Hara
It is 12:20 pm in Richmond, VA a Monday
several days after Saturday Night Live’s skit
featuring James Austin Johnson
portraying President Trump airs.
I will watch more TV news tonight.
Yes, perhaps not a great idea.
Dinner is served on TV table trays,
7:00 pm sharp to see if Amna will join Geoff
on the PBS News Hour, and learn about
what they consider important
I scroll, remote in hand,
to my YouTube library, search TCM for a
movie I might have saved, and do what I
swear I wouldn’t – start watching recorded
segments of Rachel and Lawrence and
Amanpour (I like her the best. What’s not
to like about Walter Issacson interviewing
Ron Chernow about Mark Twain?)
Holy cow! Life in TV-media-land is good
so I opt out and switch to another streaming
service to pick up an interview with one of my
favorite authors on fascism—Timothy Snyder.
The interviewer asks about his living in
Canada now—what’s it like? The food in my
stomach curdles
and I learn that his academic inquiry resulted
in a move to Canada. He said the move had nothing
to do with Trump. But for a moment I paused and
imagine many, along with me, stopped breathing
Nan Ottenritter has published chapbooks Eleanor, Speak (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and My Year 2023 (2024). She co-edited Discovery, Recovery: A Journey with Veterans (2023) and has been published in Artemis, Still Points Quarterly, Poetry Society of Virginia Anthologies, Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism (2023), and Writing the Land: Virginia (NatureCulture LLC, 2024). Her concern about American democracy has prompted her to read and understand the books of contemporary historians and host informal Citizens' Salons with friends, neighbors, and strangers in informal settings.
