Presidential Seal

By Jennifer Shneiderman

Slipping into Cadillac One
Gliding on lies and half-truths
Trump greets supporters
waving off warnings
and all that is humane.
He is the clear and present danger.

The SUV
a mobile panic room
used for political theatre
could be the Secret Service
Presidential seal of death.

The truth is a ghost
a shadow
an inconvenience
an artifact
dismissed out of hand.
Turn around and
White House portraits have been replaced
with funhouse mirrors.

Secret Service
doing their duty
following orders.
Only an enemy
would define them as expendable.
The devil is in their detail.

Before the fate is sealed
the future insular, fanatical
overrun by white supremacy
ruled by the stunningly irrational—
Vote like Jim Jones is standing over you
with a syringe.

Jennifer Shneiderman is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Indolent Book’s HIV Here and Now, The Rubbertop Review, Writers Resist, the Poetry in the Time of COVID-19, Vol 2, anthology, Variant Literature, Bright Flash Literary Review, Wingless Dreamer, Trouvaille Review, Montana Mouthful, the Daily Drunk, Sybil Journal, Unique Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Terror House, Thirteen Myna Birds, Potato Soup Journal, Awakened Voices, GreenPrints, and The Perch. She was the recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Laura Riding Jackson poetry competition.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash.