by ROBIN KOZAK

He has built in the rafters

of the underpass
as swallows build in the eaves of a barn:

a pink quilt folded tight

around a crossbeam, a cheerful quilt
printed with stars, or what passes in these parts

for stars at thirty

No feet dangle.  No smoke
issues from the concrete chimney.

But I saw his breath

as I saw the President’s on television,
a flutter of substance, or substance’s lack, in the frigid air.

I flatter
myself, like Trump, in the television

lens of my imagining: I
am better there than here,

where I’m afraid of the homeless,

wino, bleary-eyed, stumbling, blowing his inescapable breath in my face

in Philadelphia,
in 1973 or thereabouts,

on a school trip.
I wore a pink dress I was proud of, short

in the fashion of those days, zippered tight
up the front, what they call

double-knit, warm enough for May

It fit as snugly as that quilt
fit the crossbeam,

the frail Hardy board
of someone’s house.

I longed

You’re pretty, the wino said.
I guess he meant it. But I ran.

Mr. President, you are a jerk.
That makes two of us.

Ω

Robin Kozak’s writing has appeared previously in Arkansas Review, Drunk Monkeys, Field, The Gettysburg Review, Hotel Amerika, Poetry Daily, Sequestrum, and other publications. Among her awards are two Creative Artist Program grants from the city of Houston and the 2016 Sandy Crimmins Prize for Poetry. An authority on antique and estate jewelry, she currently is finishing a work of magic realism, The Holy Grail.

Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He produces oil paintings, illustrations, ceramic pieces and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries across Maine. His online portfolio is donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art.