New Pope

by Emma David

Everyone’s like oh yeah he’s American
From Chicago
Da bears
Homeboy from the homeland
Of the brave,
Free if you’re lucky,
If you’re white
If you’re male
If you’re rich
They’re saying he’s all about poor people
And the environmental crisis
And tweeted some shit about trump a while back,
critical things
“So that’s good,” they say at work, at the dinner
table, on the drive home

There’s the whole glazed over predatory behavior
but we slide that under the immaculately made
bed, like a kid who promised to clean their room,
so we can sell the house before they see the rotting
wood floorboards covered by gloriously handmade
Persian rugs, the mold behind the fridge that has AI
built into it so you don’t even have to remember the
milk is empty anymore, missing rooftop shingles,
popping off like buttons on a cheap shirt made by
hungry children, you don’t see it because the sun is
so bright it’s always so fucking bright

But it’s right downtown
But it’s in our budget
But it’s not that bad
Not that outdated
Questionable
Underwhelming
We can make it work if we don’t look closely,
Light cookie scented candles to cover the putrid
smell of rotting lungs in the basement,

Play Emmylou Harris on vinyl to cover their voices
pummeling through the pipes but that one scratch
keeps catching catching catching, keeps picking at
your skin, little nips at your toes and fingertips like
minnows in a lake in summer,

they’re just minnows in a lake in summer, but we
don’t go swimming at the lake anymore, it’s hard to
look at / all mucky and shallow with too many dead
fish and not enough water / so we buy a chlorine
pool instead and tell ourselves we don’t even smell
the bleach

Emma David’s poetry has appeared in Bastard’s
Review, Pink Salt Collective, Nude Bruce Review,
The Wallop, and Humankind Zine, along with two
self-published poetry collections.