Ode to Amanda

Published in Existere — Journal of Arts & Literature (Spring/Summer 2022)

“Well, in the South we had so many servants. Gone, gone, gone. All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasn’t prepared for what the future brought me.”

—Amanda, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

“‘The current political climate has had an impact on almost all of my clients,’” says Sarah Hays Coomer, a Nashville-based personal trainer and author… ‘They are losing sleep, fighting depression and anxiety, pain symptoms have increased, and stress eating is sky high.’”

—The Daily Dot, “Trump Anxiety Is Taking a Toll on Americans’ Health,” Winona Dimeo-Ediger. https://www.dailydot.com/irl/trump-anxiety-has-some-serious-side-effects/

Oh, Amanda.
Reading the flurry of articles
on the new pathologies—
(“Nervous Nation,” “Strangers in Their Own Land,” “Trump Anxiety,” on and on)
Disbelief, denial, depression—
I cannot help but think of you.

…Well, in the States we had so many rights.
Gone, gone, gone.
All vestige of democracy!
Gone completely!
I wasn’t prepared for what the future brought me…

And it weighs on me now
that we were not meant to pity you—
Self-cast victim,
looking back instead of ahead.
Good grief, what did you think would happen?
Get over it. Make a plan.
And really—the world you pine for?
It’s right here.
You’ve just moved to another part of town.
Welcome to everyone else’s world.

I think of you and shake myself:
Take your hand from your brow.
Rise from your sickbed.
Let us not cast ourselves as Southern Belles, please.
We are not victims.
We are not surprised.
We are not without responsibility
for the world we are in,
the world we will become.