by Martha Deed
You put your rooster where? she asks incredulous with rage
your partridge in a pear tree? your golden spike that binds us
coast-to-coast? your toy that is not yours to touch?
You text-messaged while riding in our car at the Falls
dickering over prices and personnel while on the clock
So far this mischief is only for your clergy and your wife to settle
her crumpled face contrasted with your smooth demeanor
as you trumpet remorse along with the worst of them
standing in the dock before a judge about to render sentence
calm as a rock while all around you – shattered faces
of those who love you and even those you have opposed
your smooth demeanor the opposite of grief condemns you
but there is more – your smirking aide
who has to face his wife each night painted with your brush
because you’re not smart enough to zip your – lips –
or deep-six your indiscretions because you are prone –
as the lawyers say (usually in opposition to you) –
to overreaching. Cleverness is yours, valor your companion,
but you are doing this on our dole, and in the style of a king
you are breaking laws you helped to write and swore
to uphold – and there is a string of corporate corpses behind
you to prove the point you have often made aloud:
show them no mercy who break the law
give them exactly what they deserve
they knew what they were doing
and I will not let them get away with it
strong welcome words coming from the lips of a modern politician
we didn’t see the crossed fingers or hear the rest –
unless they are doing it for me
Martha Deed recently completed a 30-day cross-country car trip which has generated all manner of writing, videos, and poems that can be found on the microblog pages of Sporkworld. Her poems have recently appeared in Big Bridge, Concelabratory Shoehorn Review, 3by3by3, and Iowa Review Web (with Millie Niss).
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