Missed Opportunities
At a photo op outrageous beyond belief,
Bush does a little jig between two soldiers
back from Iraq with artificial legs.
(Oh, you victims, you crippled sacrifices to whim,
if only one of you had leaned on the other,
unstrapped your aluminum prosthesis
and pummeled with it that hollow dome!)
And at another photo op
Sugar Ray Leonard,
finest boxer of all time,
is invited to the Rose Garden,
sees Bush’s face a foot from his own,
that face of a lobotomized fox,
that face a bullseye before Ray’s eyes.
Bush grins and jokingly “puts up his dukes,”
(nd, oh, Ray, at that moment,
lithe as a leopard, quick as a thought,
you, Ray, stood on the brink of apotheosis,
on the brink of holy martyrdom,
stood for a moment with Prometheus,
with Joan of Arc, with Nathan Hale . . )
But no, Ray, you did not measure up;
Silently you said no mas, and shook his hand,
content to be only an honored ex-pug,
A flattered darky on Bush’s plantation.
Yes, Ray, you were Arthur standing before Excalibur,
then sighing, and turning away.
(2008)
