Julie Bruck: The Latest Dictator

The President is believed to be hiding in the basement.                                                                                                                                                                                                  —BBC News

.

He who refuses to be dragged 

from office, to relinquish offshore 

assets or his own people — whom 

he gasses for their own good —

is actually upstairs in the Imperial 

Bedroom, guarding his country 

from infidels and zombies. 

His two remaining aides hover, 

having long since drawn heavy 

drapes against the crowded city 

square, having cut off incoming calls.

He could have had them both 

braised and served at state dinners.

The Green Book is open on the table,

but he sits and stares past it. In the last

few hours, despite the bright Hawaiian shirt—

properly insouciant garb—he’s grown wild-

eyed as a man about to be discovered 

hiding in a hole, a dog about to be kicked.

And now the dogs, they gather in the square.

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Julie Bruck is a Canadian poet and writer who lives in San Francisco. Brick Books has published four of her collections.

Copyright 2018 Julie Bruck. From How to Avoid Huge Ships by Julie Bruck (Brick Books, 2018).