SATURDAY AFTERNOON AFTER THE INAUGURATION

by Penelope Scambly Schott

Two boys racing bikes in tight circles

in the school parking lot.

The neighbor directly across the street

stepping into his shop.

My husband out in the yard mucking

with who-knows-what.

The dog fast asleep on the couch,

nose under one front foot.

Biden at his desk in the Oval Office

busily mending the past.

As if all our lives were now as simple

as what’s-for-dinner?

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.

MANDATORY PRESIDENTIAL VACATIONS

by Mark Danowsky

Parents are getting a lot of flack
for penciling structured down time
into otherwise jampacked schedules
for children barely able to walk.

Presidents are forever taken to task
for taking vacations in hard times
since times are always hard
for Americans who never get vacations.

We want to have a beer with the President
or play a game of golf with him
or see selfies of him with celebrities
or have him take a time out from national affairs
because there is a sinkhole in my backyard.

We are mad the President isn't working
through the night. How does he have time
to drink a beer. Why is he playing basketball
or shaking hands or hugging or smiling
in a photograph with that jackass? They stand for
everything I despise. And he has not fulfilled
his promises to me. Where is my change?

They explain the President needs time with his family.
Needs time to unwind. That he has not forgotten
his job, his country, your country, our world
or your wants and needs and fears and loves
the price of milk or American lives.


Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in Apiary, Alba: A Journal of Short Poetry, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Red River Review, Right Hand Pointing, Snow Monkey and The New Verse News.  His poem "5am Summer Storm"won Imitation Fruit’s “Animals and Their Human’s” Contest, in 2013. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Mark currently lives in a van down by the Susquehanna River. He works for a private detective agency and is assistant copy editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.