Gabriella Brand
Trawling
The Republican knocks on my door
And I answer
He’s not that Republican, the Big One.
He’s just a minnow in the little pond of my town.
Once he helped me in a snowstorm to dig out my car.
I didn’t know who he was.
The Republican knocks on my door
And I answer.
He pleads silently with his bulging eyes because
He’s not that Republican, the Big One, with the red tie.
He’s just a local guy in a lumberjack shirt.
He’d like to win again, serve up pancakes at the Rotary,
keep taxes low.
The Republican knocks on my door
And I answer
He admires my Pride sign because
He’s not that Republican, the Big One, with the ersatz Bible.
He’s just a decent guy, caught in a fish net, raised to be kind.
I can tell.
He offers me a thin tote bag with his name on it.
Save it for someone who might use it, I say, and remind him that
I’m not in the fold.
I know, he says, maybe recalling the Bernie sticker on that
snowy car. But you can still use a tote bag.
