THE DEAL

by Pepper Trail

Art by Terry Graff at Michael Moore Substack

No word is savored with such relish
by those infantile, strangely moist lips
forever yearning, reaching for the teat
of unconditional love, with the infant’s
single-minded greed, the belief that
he alone is the center of the world
his demands alone must be met and
whenever he cries and always and now
 
Such a different word, in his mouth
than “agreement” or “treaty” and with
no implication of cooperation or respect
but only the self-satisfied smirk of the
bully standing over his helpless victim
surrounded by worshipful sycophants
among whom, you can be sure, stands
his next choice for public humiliation
 
For him, the art of the deal is deceit
the goal of the deal is domination
the result of the deal is not some benefit
some lasting accomplishment or legacy
– see his casinos, his hotels, his “university” –
but only the “win,” his claim of victory
and the wreckage he leaves behind
is just what’s coming to suckers
 
To those who took his deal somehow again
who chose to join the bilked investors, the
ex-wives, the abandoned students, the unpaid
lawyers, the discarded loyalists and now the
NATO nations, the Ukrainian people, the career
scientists, the medical researchers, the firefighters
and park rangers and the entire world economy
this is what you get: you must lose so he can win
 
That’s the deal.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

by Katherine Smith

Artist: Steve Brodner via Pinterest

On the Senate Majority Leader

The oaks do not aspire
to spirit or imagination,
but grow straight up.
Indifferently

casting their shadows
over the saplings,
they search
for unopposed light
 
to fall from their canopy                       
into the shadowy ridged bark
of withered trees.
So too

there are human beings—
you know their names—
whose principles are limited
to domination and money.

They are called champions,
these proud lucky ones
that kill everything
that lives

beneath them.


Katherine Smith’s publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and many other journals.  Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.

WALKING MY DOG 2020

by Gina A. Turner

I say to my husband, “Sure, I’ll
walk the dog,” although I’m tired. I have
trouble sleeping because I worry that I’m no
good shield, should a pickup truck
drive by, and seeing me, choose to flex with
a gun to show me who’s really the boss, the
bullet hitting the dog, not me, because devils
know that emotional pain is the worst pain, and creations
of pain make some folks feel good, now.

Gina A. Turner is a professor of psychology at a community college in Pennsylvania, and lives in New Jersey.