Nixon's Second Inaugural

Catullus in a wheelchair at the Nixon inaugural . . .
Lesbia’s along with her fulsome breasts’ nipples
erect against his bare neck, his skin prickling,
the poet’s pen working like a pickaxe on the ice
of the Arctic crust of a misbegotten government,
feeling Lesbia lean into his ear, kissing Catullus.

Bobby’s going to go back to sharpening his cock
in Cristina’s womb chamber, she wants so much
to bear his baby . . . He will make Melindra wait,
she knows how undependable is his behavior,
she should, she’s waited so long for him to arouse
her well of love and empty what is there, waiting.

Bonnington likes to see him when Bobby arrives,
or says he does, who knows what a shrink is up to?
The sky may be blue outside but shadowy inside.
If rain falls on schedule in Seattle, it’s a daily tip
to stay in Cristina’s room and work making a baby,
or so he tells himself in La Iglesia de La Puta.

He imagines Catullus in Caesar’s Rome, Nixon’s
emetic taking hold, the supplicants of the throne
letting go what’s in them so as to devour more,
Lesbia preferring to lie between his greyhounds,
his legs, her mouth encircling the root of love’s
origins . . . Ah, if love were so simple, he’d starve.

Melindra asks him if he’s going to be there when
she returns. Bobby says nothing. He’s too young
to be so old, why fight betrothal before the banns?
She strides off, a handsome woman in her youth
even with, perhaps because her womb’s removed,
her silver hair gleaming in the light of the morning

(2 January 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander