Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in Philadelphia and New Hampshire. Poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent chapbook is A Field Guide to Northern Tattoos (Main Street Rag Press.) Recipient of 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant she is Poet in Residence at Drexel’s Medical School. Her newest collection, NO. HOPE STREET, was recently published by Kelsay Books.

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Where’s Melania?

here she is, outside trump tower, on June 9th 2023, a day
after Donald’s federal indictment, carrying a classic black
Chanel bag, in a long-sleeved black sweater tucked into a neutral
beige A-line skirt and topped with Saint Laurent sunglasses,

and here she is again, on June 12th, in mixed neutral
hues the day before Donald pleads not guilty in Miami,
stepping out in front of the tower in a Burberry trench coat
over a dark brown sweater and a midi-skirt clutching a brown
Hermes Birkin handbag, wearing those glossy black shades,

its been a big week, and here she is, outside trump tower
on Donald’s 77th birthday, June 14th, with her son Barron (17),
the duo elegantly dressed for the early summer day. She’s smiling,
in a crisp white dress Gucci flared shirt-dress ($3200) with
a matching white Hermes handbag as bellmen roll out
Louis Vuitton luggage and pile it into several vehicles,

is she going to Bedminster, NJ? or off on the grand European
tour she and Barron have planned, she is, sources say,
‘a good mother’, and oh, those sunglasses! does she ever take
them off? and now, June 29th, she’s released the ‘yearning
to breathe free’ line of non-fungible tokens, just in time for
that most red-white-and-blue of holiday, July 4th, 2023

Donald’s posting, ‘truthing,’ ‘F-Biden,’ oh, Melania, where
are you? key insight: she’s walking, she’s been wearing flat shoes.

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Villa Dragnet

God, I’m in this episode of Dragnet:
two cops come to the door, two young white guys;
it’s my birthday, how lucky can I get?

They knock next door first. I lean out, upset,
“He’s gone, I waited an hour.” I cry
“God, I’m in an episode of Dragnet.”

“You must have known he’d run, there’s no regret,
a knock up the head, a punch in the eye;
it’s my birthday, how lucky can I get?

“I’ll press charges this time; you wanna bet
his girlfriend pays the bail. I want to die.
God, it’s a bad episode of Dragnet.

“How’d he get in? His own key.” “You let
him have one and he does this to you, why?”
“It’s my birthday, how lucky can I get?”

“He got fired, he was angry, he gets
worked up, I‘m forty-five today, that’s why
I’m stuck in this episode of Dragnet,
it’s my birthday, how lucky can I get?”