By Lucas Jorgenson
Featured Art: “Doorways Guarding the Mind” by John Zywar

It started on The President’s cheek. Small and pink, like he was always chewing bubblegum, obvious only if he smiled. He loved it immediately, saw in it our
whole future, history, changed laws for it, made it the national mascot, respected its autonomy and rights. 

It got bigger: a meatball, a mango, a baby’s spare-haired head. It started teething. The teeth erupted bicuspid, perfect, glistening, and always white. The President feared its deflation more than anything, went on an all-milk diet, kept a fresh toothbrush in his shirt pocket to polish its every point. It was a full-time job. At night, he tucked it into a crib beside him, whispering questions about tomorrow’s weather, macroeconomic policy. 

It got bigger: a coconut, a disco ball, the head of a bull. The highest honor The President could offer was to extract a tooth and implant it in the recipient’s chest. But he got jealous. He hoarded it. It wanted to be hoarded. It waterballooned over his eyes. 

His fingers withered, plums into prunes. He said he weighed more than ever, felt healthy, robust. It rode him like a jockey. His words were garbled with it. Undulating like a pom-pom, it punctuated his every point. It got bigger: a boulder, a meteor. Underneath it, The President shrunk. He loved it. It chewed him up. He was all smiles all the time.

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Lucas Jorgensen is originally from Cleveland. He received his MFA from New York University and his PhD from the University of North Texas. His poems have been recognized by the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and featured in Poetry, The Massachusetts Review, The Southeast Review, and LitHub, among others. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Alabama and lives in Mobile with his spouse.