Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published The president keeps going. The president keeps goingand going. We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, he insists. I'd like to tether his words to a woman whose friend leads herinto a deserted field at dawn, laying her down, opening her shirt, saying:I will fight for you with every breath in my body and never let you down.Imagine if the president's words were whisperedby one woman to the other:It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.One of the women lays down, opens her shirt, a red parachuteto keep her from falling into the sky—her freckle-studded skin, almost olive,nipples point towards heaven. In her red shirt, she's a piece of sunrise,just one red shred,a petal landed onto her lover's skin.She leans over her lover, the sky trailing behind her.My fingers are long and beautiful, she says. They lie side-by-side on the grass.I’m…attracted to beautiful women, says the other woman. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. Then he strides towards them. The women pull their shirts closed. There should be no fear, he says. We are protected and have always been protected. He sits in the tree. His face darkens to champagne in the shadows. You came by the tens of millions to become part of this historic moment….the likes of which the world has never seen…How still the women are. (one tucks her hair behind her small pink ears, eyebrows twin caterpillars)We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries, he says. Just below his touch, the wind grants a dusting of pollenonto the women's hands. I want to believe in a love like theirs.The field choked with flowers, flowers choked with gold and more gold into pollen, pollen dusting the bees' knees; the women's toes touching in the creek. It's time to remember the old wisdom, he still insists.(his hair blows up in a brief breeze.)The woman in red leans over. She takes her lover's hand. Nothing happens in this field.There are just two women watching the sky,and it doesn't matter what they do,there's no hidden hand to hurt them. Not even the wind speaks—I want the words to stop here.

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