During the candidates debate,
the incumbent smiled like an angel,
like an angel who forgot the first line
of her auspicious announcement:
“Be not afraid.”
Her smile seduced me into thoughts of edible underwear,
no durable substance, the fantasy of privilege and cliché.
This smile is often used by women about to be found out,
a façade of calm, a mask of tranquility, fake composure
as she does the necessary thing she doesn’t want to do,
radiate her duplicity with a laser beam of single-minded facts.
Her smile, in perfect candor, tells you she knows
something she doesn’t want you to know;
how good it is to be white in America.