By Cody Walker
He thought he saw the Sort of Men
He’d always Feared or Hated:
He looked again, and found it was
Eight Years, obliterated.
“It’s Sessions . . . Flynn . . . it’s everyone
Who—.” Silence, then. We waited.
He thought he saw his Dumb Concerns
(Exhausted, Getting Fat):
He looked again, and found it was
Dear God, some KOMPROMAT!
“My prayers are answered! Glory be!
Confirm this story, stat!”
He thought he saw a Thousand Rubles
Shoved inside Trump Tower:
He looked again, and found it was
Ivanka, looking dour.
“A thousand—that’s, what, sixteen bucks?!”
He laughed (for like an hour).
He thought he saw a Frightened Nation
Change its Locks and Keys:
He looked again, and found it was
Some guy on Twitter. “Pleeease!
Just tie him to a chair or something.
Feed him bits of cheese.”
Cody Walker is the author of The Self-Styled No-Child (Waywiser, 2016) and Shuffle and Breakdown (Waywiser, 2008). His poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Yale Review, Slate, Salon, and The Best American Poetry (2015 and 2007). His essays have appeared online in The New Yorker and the Kenyon Review. His new collection, The Trumpiad (Waywiser, 2017), was released in April; all proceeds will be donated to the ACLU. Visit Cody’s website at www.CodyWalker.net.
Photo credit: Daniel Oines via a Creative Commons license.
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