He says:
Both sides. Both sides.

He says:
It’s not the guns
(they shout: THE CONSTITUTION)

And
Sick sick people

And
Fake news

And
Obama

He says:
I am a stable genius.

He says:
Crazy birthright citizenship
(we shout: THE CONSTITUTION)

And
Go back where they came from

And
Lock them all up. Together. Indefinitely.

And
Obama

He says:
She is a nasty woman.

He says:
I want to buy Greenland.

And
Can’t treat the United States like that

And
Show some respect

And
Obama

I want to live above it all. Nine floors up where the world looks different from my window sometimes. Not yet fully broken. Still, my head throbs, my heart suffers. Outside and nearby a fortune from a cookie lifts on the wind, twirls in the air. A tiny strip. Red letters. High. Higher. I am trying to read it.

Joy,
I imagine

Better Days,
I hope

Change,
I remember

Patience.

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Patricia Ann McNair writes fiction and nonfiction. The Temple of Air, stories, won Southern Illinois University Devil’s Kitchen Readers Award, Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, and was a finalist for Society of Midland Authors Adult Fiction Award. And These Are The Good Times essays, was a Montaigne Medal finalist. McNair’s work has been published widely, including in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The Good Men Project, Superstition Review, Solstice Lit Mag, Hypertext and other journals and magazines. She is a contributor to The Rumpus, and The Washington Independent Review of Books. She was named to Chicago’s NewCity Lit50 list, and to Guild Complex’s 30 Writers to Watch. Her work has been featured in creative writing textbooks, and she teaches graduate and undergraduate students at Columbia College Chicago where she directs the undergraduate creative writing programs. McNair is artistic director for Mining the Story, a writers’ retreat in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.

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