John Steele

May higher tariffs
raise the price of everything you need.

Dear Trump voter,
May mass deportation of undocumented immigrants
destroy the agriculture industry
and other sectors of the economy
that rely on low-wage, back-breaking labor,
although I’m sure you and your friends
will rush to claim those jobs that were being stolen
from you.

Dear Trump voter,
May threatened librarians and public school teachers
exit, en masse, your community.

Dear Trump voter,
May Obamacare be repealed
and your pre-existing conditions
come home to roost.
Who knew healthcare was so complicated?

Dear Trump voter,
May your loved one come out as LGBTQ
and be demeaned, bullied, assaulted,
persecution assailing your home,
not just those of Others.

Dear Trump voter,
May you or your wife or your daughter
be denied emergency medical care
for a complicated pregnancy.

Dear Trump voter,
May gutted environmental protections
foul your water and your air
and speed the destruction of your planet.

Dear Trump voter,
May you or your wife or your daughter
be sexually assaulted
and ridiculed and libeled publicly
by the assailant.
Would you still condone this behavior?

Dear Trump voter,
May you suffer a crisis of conscience
and be tarred heretic
by your spiritual family,
your blood family,
by your angry, petulant God.

Dear Trump voter,
May you, someday,
suffer empathy
for someone living a life
different from your own.

John Steele, a North Carolina poet and writer, has studied creative writing at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He has been a teacher, a nonprofit tutor, a logistics coordinator, a high-ropes-course director, a warehouse technician, and, for one fateful day in the deepest, darkest, coldest recesses of January in southern Indiana, an arborist assistant. Poetry is the loose thread of sanity at which he cannot stop tugging.

This poem appears in Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival (The Chaos Section Poetry Project, Fall 2026). We’re sharing each poem from the collection individually over the coming weeks. You can read the full book or download the free PDF here.