What You Do When You Find Out Your First Friend is a Trumper

by Vicki Iorio


You’ve known her since your parents moved to Levittown when you were both babies. GI Dads, cheap houses with free televisions. Holding hands in strollers, training bikes/bras, hair curlers. Smoking cigarettes every Saturday at the May’s Department Store trolling for bad boys with pompadours from distant towns— East Meadow, Baldwin, Bellmore.

As senior citizens, you find each other again on Facebook. Sweet coincidence. You live in the same town in Central Florida. You meet for an Early Bird Special, talk about the joys of Metamucil. You diagnose each other’s rashes then she drops the bomb—

She is a Trumper because she is against abortion. Did she forget that you held her hand during hers? That you gave her your summer job money—it was no big deal, just a Saturday morning of cramps, a heating pad afternoon. You freak and raise your voice, Hitler and history repeating itself. The other diners at the Lost Lagoon point at the crazy lady, take videos.

You throw money on the table and leave. Burning rubber, you feel like you’re having a heart attack, debate going to the ER, instead you choose Yoga with your favorite YouTube instructor; square breathing and CBD gummies. A shitload of wine, a dot of Xanax. Friendship fills your dreams.


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Vicki Iorio is the author of the poetry collections Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press), Not Sorry (Alien Buddha Press), and the chapbooks Send Me a Letter (dancinggirlpress) and Something Fishy (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals including The Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, poets respond online, The Fem Lit Magazine, and The American Journal of Poetry. Vicki is currently living in Florida, but her heart is in New York.