Donald Trump’s wife, nearly spitting, “Everyone

in my country know Melania is gold digger,”

I half laugh at the irony of the felon-in-chief

marrying a light-skinned immigrant when he

is brutal towards poor, brown, desperate people

crossing our border. During the first Presidency

people wondered if the slinky former model

of exotic Slavic face was truly dazzled by him

in those first heady Manhattan nights when all

the rich players were high on cocktails and cocaine.

The second Presidency dispelled all doubt,

our democracy shocked into a torn up rose garden

and Alligator Alcatraz. I don’t care, do you?

I call our new friend the Anti-Melania,

still in her thirties and exotic in a softer way,

mirroring Mother Earth with a green glint

of wild mountain cat in her eyes. She tells

my mate and me how her grandmother joined

the partisans when Nazis invaded during

World War II, her babica eighteen years old.

I remember my eighteen, marching to end war,

innocently chanting for equality and kindness.

As for Anti-Melania’s grandmother, one pre-dawn

the SS trapped and arrested her at home,

dragging her away. Imprisoned in three camps

before the War ended, she was fed nothing but

rice. When rice grains gleamed in prisoners’ shit

they’d eat those, too. The worst of it

she never spoke. I only hope I may be

so courageous. I care, don’t you?

One day we clamber into my companion’s van

and Anti-Melania guides us to mountains where

the guerillas hid and lived and were never found.

We drive up a twisting dirt road to a partisan cabin

she inherited, encircled by verdant forest,

spring meadow, air thick with sweetness

and bees thanks to purplish flowers …

wild mountain thyme. Delirious from the scent,

I hum a beloved folk song with that name.

My mate builds a fire. We sip homemade soup,

watch stars appear. Anti-Melania says she feels

like she did when her brave babica used to sing

her to sleep … not the usual children’s lullabies

but partisan songs from her youth. We leave

at midnight. A small mountain cat glints sleek

and silent in the headlights, a quick darkness

sidling into black evergreens and we three

crying out freedom in the fleeting mystery.