MIKE PENCE, I AM NOT TRYING TO SEDUCE YOU

by Melissa Fite Johnson

Tweet by Quinn Sutherland‏ @ReelQuinn, March 30, 2017:  “Yes, I’m here for my meeting with Mike Pence.”

No need to pluck the napkin from your lap,
Mike, I’ll only stay a moment. I have
a table already, over there by that window.
See my husband, speaking with the waitress
in a way that doesn’t make me uncomfortable?
Yes, I agree—the waitress is beautiful!
There’s something about a natural redhead,
you’re so right. It looks like he’s ordered us
a bottle of wine. That’s nice. Anyway,
Mike, if you could put down your fork
for a moment, I wanted to talk to you about
Planned Parenthood. Oh, stop, I understand
this is a fancy place, but surely some people
are talking shop. What about that booth?
Four white men, all in suits. You don’t think
that’s a business meeting? Please.
I’ve seen photos of your business meetings.
As I was saying—hey, could I sit for a minute?
I feel a bit awkward hovering over you
like some genie. Wait, are you blushing?
Do you have a thing for I Dream of Jeannie?
Heh, should I call you Major? No need to
flag down a waiter, Mike, I’m kidding.
So my friend went to Planned Parenthood
two years ago, and it ended up saving her—
Hello? Mike? Oh, is that your wife over there?
Talking to my husband? He probably
called out to her as she left the restroom.
She looks fine to me, Mike. Oh, my God,
did you really just ask about my intentions?
I intend to tell you how Planned Parenthood—
Jesus, I’ll explain my intentions as soon as
she comes over here. For now, she’s laughing
pretty hard. Yeah, my husband’s hilarious.
You know, it wouldn’t kill you to crack a joke
now and then. You’ve got one?  Let’s hear it!
Christ, Mike, a blonde joke? That’s the kind of
sexist thinking I’m concerned about. Sure,
take a moment, try again. Yes, I can see
your wife’s still laughing. Mike, seriously.
I’m not worried; you don’t need to be worried.

Melissa Fite Johnson’s first collection While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015),won the Nelson Poetry Book Award and is a Kansas Notable Book. Her poems have appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, Broadsided Press, velvet-tail, and elsewhere. Melissa teaches English and lives with her husband in Kansas. 

EATING BREAKFAST AT COLONIAL AND READING HARPER'S ON THE EGG WARS

by Joan Colby

Meme source: Twitter

Reading how the hens suffer
Crammed by the thousands in metal cages,
Stacked stories high,
The air thick with dust and feathers,
Beaks clipped, thin necks bloody,
The dying decaying beneath calloused claws,
Adhering like bathmats to the wire floors.
Forced to lay seven times the norm,
Until spent, to be seized
By the handsful, gassed and ground
For pet food. Never seeing sunlight
Or spreading wings or nesting in trees
Or taking dustbaths or establishing
The pecking order. Reading that to guarantee
A normal chicken life would mean
Paying triple or more for this
Scrambled plate, I tell you
I’d pay whatever it costs to let them be
Chickens scratching in the dirt, how maybe we
Should set up the nesting boxes
In our old coop and get some
Leghorns, though I know we won’t
Bother really, and much as I abhor
What I am reading, there’s the long distance
Between slick paper and the
Long, long barns and my fork.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.