by Karen Olshansky
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records on Dec. 7, 2021, in a storage room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., that had fallen over with contents spilling onto the floor. Justice Department/AP via TIME.
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In front of deep yellow drapes on the stage of the gilded ballroom stacked in haphazard rows in the marbled powder room under the crystal chandelier behind the commode piled high like cardboard towers in a storage closet near clothing wrapped in cleaner’s plastic spilled like a garbage can ransacked by raccoons in cartons overturned with scattered yellowed newspapers and photos: precious papers, secrets that protect, that keep us safe, that the braggadocio hordes for his own pleasure and profit, a man protected by slavish minions and deplorable citizens in thrall to an UnAmerica.
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Karen Olshansky lives in Marin County, California with her husband and a well fed Koi named Pickle Face. She writes poetry in order to maintain her sanity. Her work has appeared in The Literary Nest, Tuck magazine, The News Verse News and the anthologies Lingering in the Margins, Unsealing Our Secrets, and Unspoken.
This poem captures the flagrant folly of it all.