Poetry Julene Tripp Weaver

       Emma K Alexandra CC




Election Grief

We will transition into a formal
dictatorship, which will require
greater resistance. Suppression
will become blatant, revenge
will be acted out on the population,
immigrants, blacks, gays, trans, 
and young women
by control of their bodies.

Trump cheated into office
in some invisible way.
Gloating, how he didn’t need
votes, not campaigning
singing forty minutes on stage.
Clear incompetence
Clear mental decline
Yet, he is a mirror for our culture.

His stupidity and the swarm of wealth
he lives under with his golden
toilet, his brazen outspokenness
his hatred toward anyone who
does not worship him or who
is not a dictator. A rapist.
A felon. He will reign
with power from his
Supreme Court.

Get your tubal ligations, vasectomies,
stock up on Plan B, donate to ACLU,
a small amount monthly, find your people.
Speak out. Protect your friends.
Organize for a cause you believe in
expect resistance, expect arrest.

We may lose our medical, our social
security nets, our rights, but we will
fight to keep our rights.

Don’t hold regrets, we are here now
living in our aggravated cesspool 
of racism, sexism, xenophobia, 
all the isms. They are ready to build
incarceration camps. 

Get to know your people, we know who
will be hurting most. 
Help who you can.
Love. 
Bring those you love closer.
This is a time to grieve, then rise
it is what we are here for.





​Decision About Owning a Pet

I had a cat, learned I wasn’t prepared 
to be a cat parent. That was the last animal 
I took into my home.

More of a people person, 
with a take-care-of-myself motivation. 
There are enough problems. 

Since nineteen I didn’t want children, 
so how could I expect to care for a pet? 
A home doesn’t need a pet.

A counselor, I cared for people
in my work, but couldn’t bring myself 
to care for relatives. My sister did that.

I house sat for year pet-sitting a cat--
I saved that cat with two shots a day, she
survived feline AIDS. I’ve done caregiving,

expressed love, that cat lived twenty long
years, her cat years equaled ninety-seven,
as long as my great grandmother lived.

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Julene Tripp Weaver is the author of four poetry collections: Slow Now With Clear Skies, truth be bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, winner of the Bisexual Book Award and four Human Relations Indie Book Awards), No Father Can Save Her, and a chapbook Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues. Widely published and anthologized, she was a Jack Straw Writing Fellow (2022-2023). Find her at www.julenetrippweaver.com.
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