Camus: Did you become a Tea Party member today
or yesterday?
Cruz: Je ne sais pas. What difference does it make?
Adamant or ablative?
Buttonhole or brandish?
Camus: Can I call you Ted?
Is the welfare of the people the alibi of tyrants?
Cruz: Entente or egregious?
Filibuster or fricassee?
Camus: Ted, think about your Caucus. Do you consider
suicide as the only escape from the absurdity of
politics?
Cruz: Golf would be that, Albert. Golf. No question.
Herring or hubbub?
Infuse. Refuse. Refuse. Accuse. J'accuse! Zola, right?
Camus: Eh bien mon frère, vous connaissez Sisyphe?
You know Sisyphus, right?
Cruz: Oui, oui Albert. I graduated Princeton cum laude.
Judicious jab.
Kebob kingdom.
Camus: LOL. I don't get the metaphor, Ted.
Cruz: Mordant mincemeat.
Nefarious narcolepsy.
Obama!
Camus: Mon frère, we should be a rockin' & a rollin',
pushin' that boulder up the slope ensemble.
Together. Juntos! I didn't write that damn essay
to waste time. You've read La Peste, right?
Cruz: Plague!
Quite a story if I say so myself.
Rats, rats, rats, rats.
Socialist rats. Everyone helping each other. So creepy.
Camus: TMI, Ted.
Cruz: United we stand, Albert.
Vouloir, c'est pouvoir. Where there's a will,
there's a way. Voulez-vous . . . High school French, man.
So tell me, Al. Why did the Stranger want a crowd
at his execution? Can't remember the weirdo's name.
Camus: Very strange question from you, mon frère. Surely
you get off on les cris de haine, cries of hatred, right?
Cruz: Wrestle with the wrath like I always say.
Xerox the xenophobia. You get my drift.
Camus: Yak or yodel?
Zion or Zen?
Zut alors!
Cruz: Yesterday or today?
Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye; Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo); The Raintown Review; and Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes). Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English and ESL at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.