I wrote this poem after January 21, 2017. I performed it at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, May 6th, 2017.
Woman Interrupted
A thousand men in cheap toupees
wave blue dresses
rippling and undulating like patriotism
stained and soiled with falsehoods
lock her up, lock her up, lock her up
they chant boisterously
One blonde woman in sensible shoes
stands at a podium
lips twitching from strain
shoulders slumped, knees buckling
under red, white and blue weight
senator, secretary, sweaty salvation
birthing encumbrances
she carries the burden of every woman
Five hundred thousand women in white pant suits
swallow up concrete space
labia-pink knitted hats nod and wink
clever slogans bob up and down like bouys
marching clits, screaming vulvas and singing snatches
snake fluidly through city streets
A thousand brown women in mini skirts
look to the ceiling
scramble up the blond hair rungs
of a deteriorating D.C. ladder
heaving cleavages squashed against glass
red-tape lipstick smeared across transparency
One middle-aged woman in a black pant suit
flashes dejected pearly whites
five hundred thousand deferred dreams
tumble from her shoulders
into putrid puddles of complacency
suicidal bravado slices
into dead air silently
woman rupture, woman interrupted
Rosemary Meza-DesPlas 