Deborah Bacharach
My Prayer for the Women Who Voted for Trump
May the cake you baked for the cake walk,
the one with uneven frosting, pink and white sprinkles
not get picked last, not even second to last
as the children go square to square
until the music stops.
May you tell old jokes,
the ones that have everyone doubled over
on their woven net lawn chairs
laughing so hard they cry before
Beth gets to the last line.
Around a fire, may you sing
about cars and courting, with my uncle
on the banjo. May you see
a rabbit in the moon.
May your children cover you
with pink and white daisies,
your back steps as strong as your bones.
May you have all the babies you want.
None that you don’t.
Deborah Bacharach is the author of After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Arts & Letters, Blue Mesa Review, and The Texas Review, among other journals. Her work has also appeared in Jump Start: A Northwest Renaissance Anthology (Steel Toe Books, 2009), edited by Lonny Kaneko, Pat Curran, and Susan Landgraf; A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry (Calyx Books, 2002), edited by Margarita Donnelly, Beverly McFarland, Micki Reaman, and Carole Simmons Oles; and Sex and Single Girls: Women Write on Sexuality (Seal Press, 2000), edited by Lee Damsky. She is a writing tutor in the Seattle. Find out more about her at DeborahBacharach.com.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.
Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.