by Mark Williams
“I don’t think they like me much anymore.”
—Donald Trump, Jr., commenting on the co-hosts of The View
Just to let you know, Don, Jr.,
we have several things in common.
Both of our fathers were in real estate,
and they took us with them on their showings.
Stepping from his car, a man once told my dad,
“I like this house already.”
“You might like it on the outside,” young me said,
“but wait until you see it on the inside.”
Like you, Don, Jr., the inside needed work.
And then there was the antique Steepleton slate-bed
pool table my father was given as a bonus.
(He’d sold a house within a week.) I spent
many hours shooting pool on that table.
And I was good! But who wouldn’t be? Someone
had rounded off the slate at every leather pocket.
If a ball was within two inches, it dropped in.
Up until the day you talked to Joy, Whoopi,
Abby, Meghan and Sunny,
it was as if you’d played your life
on an antique Steepleton slate-bed
with generous, deep pockets.
You were on a run. You could not miss. Please know
that when I shot pool on tables at Arc Lanes, the Y
or the Brunswick at Brett Hart’s house,
I embarrassed myself badly every time.
Mark Williams lives in Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, and Tuck Magazine. This is his third appearance in TheNewVerse.News.
