my mother, my sister, my aunt, my mother’s sisters and aunts, my aunt’s mother

and sister and all our girl cousins and their mothers and sisters me too of course, you

get the idea, and each of us has, neatly typed on the proper form our list of approved

grievances, suggestions, even a polite demand or two, and of course the other, longer,

list of gratitudes and appreciations because as we have always known—taught to us

so young we thought it blood knowledge—you catch more flies with honey,

honey

on the proper forms, each item neatly and properly numbered in something

approaching order of importance because we understand the importance of order

and organization and rationality and not appearing emotional hysterical shrill god-

help-us angry you get the idea

they chain around this block and many others, around around around till from

the air we must look like snail shell spirals, each gripping her page of neatly typed

and rational bullet-point suggestions. The snail-shell lines creep forward on invisible

feet. Noon sun drills our skulls. The afternoon stretches and stretches, far longer than

we’d thought possible. No matter how delicately we hold our fulsome gratitudes, no

matter how careful we’ve been every day up to and including this one, sweat seeps

from our palms to soften the crisp paper, cause the ink to run

and step by snail-paced step we make our way around the block the next block the one

after that then up the stairs down the high-ceilinged halls flanked by rows of white

old men in ornate frames—down down down that long hall to the broad double doors

and through them and up toward the dais where white old men (the same ones? others?

how can we tell without the frames?) are buttoning their jackets and practicing their

handshakes. Five o’clock, ladies. Come back tomorrow if you must. Here we do things

by the book and it is the book we wrote

and it is the only book.

Sara McAulay is the author of 2 novels (Knopf), a novel for young readers, and numerous works of short fiction (Black Warrior Review, California Quarterly, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Third Coast, ZYZZYVA, among others). She is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in prose. After many years of not writing, she has turned to poetry and flash to channel her anger at the 2016 election and so much that has followed.