Morning, after election eve,
November 8, 2028
As I break
out of sleep,
I hear in my mind,
the throb
of Hauser,
my favorite cellist,
crashing
his rendition
of Sway,
as if he were
setting the world
afire in dance,
an historic
whirlwind of glee.
The New York Times
headline,
copied across
the globe,
says it all:
She Wins!
The War is Over!
Newspapers,
battered endlessly
by the losing
candidate,
whose name goes
unmentioned,
have dreamed
of this moment,
as have I.
I can only say,
my dreams
smoldered
with fear,
a battlefront,
that allowed me
no peace.
My nightmares
always drew
my imagination
to Los Alamos,
across the valley
from me,
where America’s
nuclear arsenal
never slept,
or so it seemed.
The lights
on its cloud-high
promontory,
never dark.
America’s coercion,
the past four years,
enrages the rest
of the world,
like nothing
I remember.
I’d often dream
the planet’s
unyielding
frustration
could lead
to a fearsome
volley of missiles,
targeting sites
like Los Alamos.
I had no escape.
The sun rises,
and with it,
my spirits.
I can almost feel
the world,
under my feet,
heave
an unbounded
tremor of relief.
Hauser’s cello
sings my mind
into the future,
a future,
I keep telling
myself,
more than
dream.
