“Falling asleep over Ovid (and Dreaming of Mike Pence)” by Dan Grossman

Unsplash image credit: History in HD @historyhd

Falling asleep over Ovid 
(or Dreaming of Mike Pence)

I was reading the part in Metamorphoses
where Mercury lulls Argus to sleep with his flute.
My radio was turned to the NRA convention,
not far away, in downtown Indianapolis. 

Mike Pence, at the podium, was praising the crowd
for booing him. My eyelids, meanwhile,  
grew heavier than the bullet Pence transformed
himself into. The new look didn’t placate 

the audience, who called for blood. 
That’s when AKs started blasting everywhere
from Kentucky to Alabama. The boos continued 

until Pence morphed into Putin and denounced 
the “woke war” I awoke at that moment
thankful that the stream from my lip was just spit.