Dear Nixon, my mother wrote about you
in my baby book
when I was learning to walk
you were being investigated
and she was afraid of you
I’m thirty and she votes Bush
because she votes babies
and thinks welfare needs
to be reformed because
she was on it for so many years
so many things become conflated
like when Time wrote an article
on your diplomacy with China
they didn’t mention your opening
relations with Pinochet
my mother, by the way, had dimples
and curls in her baby book
this was before the weight
and all the years with calculating
older people
not that I’m blaming you
you should see all the people I’m writing

Dawn Tefft | Mudlark No. 29
Contents | Dear Simone de Beauvoir