Two Poems
Melissa Balmain

Pinocchio Runs for Office

Folks, don’t be fooled by all the phony buzz:
I’m no one’s puppet, and I never was.
I didn’t torture an endangered whale.
At Pleasure Island, I did not inhale.

You say you’ve seen the footage? It’s all wonky—
I’m solid GOP, no hint of donkey.
My only kind of “circus”? Media.
(Ignore those pics on Wikipedia.)

And what about the rumor—so damn nasty!—
that constant lying led to rhinoplasty
at some chic clinic north of Bimini?
A smear by my opponent, Jiminy.

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Exit Pall

Midterm votes are done:
optimism’s fading fast
that the folks who won
somehow will—unlike the last—
see that more than gas gets passed.

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‘Pinocchio Runs for Office’ appears in Melissa’s book The Witch Demands a Retraction: Fairy-Tale Reboots for Adults (Humorist Books), and ‘Exit Pall’ is from her book Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books).

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Melissa’s notes: “There’s precious little to laugh about when it comes to US politics, but that can’t stop a gal from trying.”

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Melissa Balmain edits Light, North America’s longest-running journal of comic verse, and teaches writing at the University of Rochester. Her poems and/or prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Ecotone, The Hopkins Review, Lighten Up Online, Literary Matters, McSweeney’s, Mezzo Cammin, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Nimrod, Poetry Daily, and Rattle. Her latest book of poetry is Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books).

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Two Poems Melissa Balmain

Two Poems
Melissa Balmain