Presidential Frontrunners

A diverse group of candidates and it's a real horse race.

Presidential Frontrunners

Dog with a tail in its forehead.
Skeleton washing its hands with soap.
Hourglass with a Hitler mustache.
Designer handbag in front of a waterfall.
Pile of jackets on the bed with a law degree.
Asp clasping a red, white, and blue pinwheel.
Massage therapist / undercover cop.
Jewelry box full of applesauce left in the fridge.
Ziploc bag full of Bay Area fog.
Pitiless Olympian.
Oligarch in flannel.
Heroin-addicted nuclear submarine captain.
Unpublished memoirist.
Unrepentantly racist centaur.
Lemming in a jetpack.
Sasquatch in a straitjacket.
Breadstick in a hotdog bun.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame in full British redcoat regalia.
All-khaki grim reaper.
War widow who refuses to sing the national anthem.
War widow who sings the national anthem over every other song.
Hot air balloon with no one in it.
Nixon masked stretched over a basketball.
Beanbag chair with a javelin through it.
Half-melted ice sculpture of Lincoln.
Red-eyed cyborg with a Leninism chip.
Mill wheel stuck in a frozen creek.
Restaurateur whose “tapas” are actually full meals.
Surfer who claims to be able to hear the voices of drowned surfers when inside the curl of a wave.
Pinocchio whose nose is a selfie stick.
Barista who knows every customer’s name.
Eunuch for whom the minutes pass as hours.
: ) drawn in crayon on a mirror.
Ghostbuster who refuses to lift a finger.

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A version of this poem was originally published in the chapbook Salad on the Wind by Song Cave Books in 2019.

Song Cave publishes numerous phenomenal full-length volumes. A favorite new one is Sarah Nicholson’s April. Excerpt from the order page:

"Sometimes I feel that I have so much to give, but no one to give it to. In reality I have nothing to give, and anyone can have it."