day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY THREE

poem as
deliberate crime parade

-for Melania


We confetti. Hearts take
longer wrapped in photograph.

Slovenia, I draw your name
on an airport poster.

Articles of conscription arrive
with the Secret Service

in a Chinese Dragon costume
the length of a train.

Strangers hold the other end.
Reflecting your uneasiness

it isn’t very tall.
We cheer for you.

Your husband or your father
run the other way.

Sleep is to night
as nap is to day.

The clouds are fields of rock
and the sky turned loam.

I can’t hold it over my head
and check the time.

Branding, he said.
His genius is in the naming of things.

He is tweeting 

your eyes look Oriental.

Asking for a minute alone with you
they are calling a deliberate crime.

What does the second
hand say in thirty couplets?

So long. So long. So long.
Torn to pieces

I may not
recollect your face.

--Paul Koniecki