Rising with the sun, almost every day
you take breakfast of biscuits and honey
soft enough for your one tooth, gums you lay
with hippo-tusk dentures before you see
your public. At six-feet-four, tall enough
to survey crowded rooms, you draw all eyes
as you walk, talk of peace, Congress, the stuff
of gluing states into nations. You try
to keep Tom and Alex in line, knowing
if the center holds, the country may too.
When the time comes, you say farewell, showing
us freedom’s price, work we still need to do.
Slowed by opium for your gums, you bend
to time and pain. A sore throat brings the end.
Roger Armbrust
March 25, 2001
