It’s not about you.
As with the art of sautée
the heat is quick & light
& the only obvious part
as with the holding of the pan
is that it cannot only be
about the President’s plan
or the President’s might
or what the President does
but what others might.
Because persuaders teach
only the vaguest of truths:
teachers list discoveries
but omit discoverers’ crimes,
pilots ascend to 36 thousand feet
but are meteor-riding dullards
when unfathomed engines fail
& the streets look up to see
what art could be made of the incoming debris.
Let others teach the President
to sautée the truth in an abandoned house:
pretend to return to lunar exploration
rediscover the Romanche Trench
as Cousteau in his Calypso
caught in a bloody fish-fry mass
to reminisce
at the oblique folly of verse
recited from a Georgetown hospice
to thrive in confusion
sell compassion from a limerick
exploit the genteel illusion
to ignore the unanswered siren
let Bach sink below talk
propose solemn secrets of the spoon.
Let Presidential invocations
fall upon them who make their love
beneath a simpler moon
sans speech sans regret
leave praise song only for the few
who travel a dimly lit path
to face down the eye of misery
2 March 2012
For Elizabeth Alexander