AN IMAGINED EXCERPT FROM FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA’S POST-PRESIDENTIAL BOOK

and i told him

i loved him after

wiping his tears

and that i’d put the girls

to bed with bedtime

stories undoing the

day’s rumor that

their daddy was the devil

(the day before he was a monkey)

and then i showed

him my bruised knuckles

my bruised knuckles

which he kissed lovingly

as i explained how

i’d had another moment

and punched the wall