Politics

2019-2020 by: Corinne Davenport

There is a billboard on my drive home, only. I say only because it is not visible on my way to work or school. So this is to say, it is personal. There is a baby protected by a soft-blue blanket on the board. This blanket, the hopefulness of repealing legislation, is to protect the baby, only. So this is to say, the woman does not matter. So this is to say, it is not personal. These people, our government, often do not think beyond their money. I bring up the billboard as I phone my lover. His ears are idle while my voice is not. With my voice comes my mind--I am a woman to speak un-blanketed. As I wind down the heat in my womb, he finally speaks: “Baby, please never bring this up to my father.” There is a billboard on my drive home, only. Where baby once was protected by the soft-blue blanket. But it is gone now, which is to say it is forgotten, or it is over, or it never should have happened in the first place. Does that mean it is the woman’s turn? Does she get her soft-blue blanket? On the billboard now is an advertisement for trading used cars online. Which does not mean the old billboard was not an advertisement. The subjects are traded. Your rights for their religion. Your rights for their vocal cords. Your body for their God. Your body for their opinion. Your body for their consumption. Your body, their receipt. My lover’s decision is idle. He does not decide if it is my body or his religion. My body or his buzzing cords. My body or his God, his opinion. He does not file my body on his 1099. But my lover consumes the frame, paint, model, and make of me. He is not worried about the legislation trying to finger-paint the walls of my Sistine Chapel-womb and he Michelangelo. But he is worried about the soft-blue blanket for the second amendment, for the branch of the ATF, for his chapel safe from burning. He is worried about the protection of his weapons and his fun. I say, “But honey, where is the amendment protecting you from me?”