Portside

Delete

By Charlotte Muse

Rate Joe Biden's Presidency

I have been visited by three spirits:

the Ghost of the Unreviewed, a wraith of many voices

wailing like a choir in pain;

the Ghost of Won't You Please Take a Moment

To Tell Us About Your Experience, a spectral mosquito

groan-humming, You have not;

and three Witches (one in my face, one at each ear) chanting

We Strive to Provide You With the Best Possible Customer Service.

I'm up to five spirits.  I'm not good at math.

There's no room for more. Biden's doing great.  Delete. 

Does Charlotte approve of Mitch McConnell? 

Charlotte thinks Mitch McConnell is

the reincarnated progeny of Eve and the snake,

born after she left the garden, Adam lost interest,

and they had trouble with their adult kids.

Mitch has got Eve's wavy hair, but the rest of him is

all snake.  Wait, though. Who are these strangers who

somehow know my name to ask for my opinion?  

I disapprove of them, I am old school.  Delete.  

This is my final ask for the quarter. 

In the name of all that is holy in verbs— 

their vigor, their existential assertion of being,

their lack of laziness—delete. Even to laze is to do something. 

Try not to allow the nounification of verbs to

take place in your presence. 

This is a hard e-mail to write.

But even harder to read.  Delete.

Team Somebody's First or Last Name.  

Who but a blatant narcissist would want a team of sycophants? 

True, there were those in high school who did, but I did not. 

Well OK, maybe I did, but I couldn't pull it off. 

I know now other rewards are out there.  I am not bitter.

Not at all.  Delete.

I emailed you, Nancy Pelosi emailed you, other noted figures e-mailed you.  

Delete.

Crush Cruz.  

Avoid e-mails that invite you to indulge in violent revenge fantasies. 

Still, this one's about Ted Cruz, and if you had to crush somebody…

Do not get on this train of thought. 

Though I suppose you could save it til last. 

No. Think about rainbows.  Delete.                                         

Charlotte Muse lives teaches and writes in Menlo Park, CA. She has taught poetry at San Francisco State, U.C. Berkeley Extension, and many other venues.  Her awards include the Allen Ginsberg Award, the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, the Yeats Society of New York's Poetry Prize, and two Atlanta Review International Publication Awards, among others.  She's published four chapbooks. Her new book of selected poems, In Which I Forgive the River (Broadstone Books) is her first full length collection.