Miss America!

¡Qué guapa!

I love what you’ve done with beauty.

You took its pure, lily-white

supremacist notion

and introduced it to some salutary sunshine.

Your body is as shapely

as three contiguous continents.

Your hair is charcoal cornsilk. 

From your eyes billions of faces

look out towards a promised land

no mortal eye has ever seen,

north or south.

We’re all hanging form the crescent

moon you live on,

too many inside nooses,

too many adjusting them

around necks not their own.

Please send another Juan Diego

to the competent authorities

with convincing roses to make them

build a bigger, better Temple of Loving Justice.

Make America Great Again.

All of her.

Great, as in generous, gracious, gratuitous.

I love what you’ve done with beauty.

You cured her of all fears.

She’s gone out and changed her name:

Equality.

¡Qué guapa!

Your suntanned sure successor

Miss America!

Greg Kennedy SJ is a Jesuit priest working as a spiritual director at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph, Ontario. His prayer often takes the form of poetry. Care of creation is central to his vocation. His new book, Amazing Friendships Between Animals and Saints, is now available for purchase.