On a Prophetic Photo in the Times

As president, you come before the brace
of Doric columns with your chastened frown,
that heavy lip of schoolboy in disgrace.
Advisors to your left and right look down
in attitudes of reverence, even prayer.
But hands in this catastrophe belie
a cynicism on the public stair,
the smallness of your game beneath the sky.
A final act. Can you say “denouement”,
George W, without a Texas sneer?
Perhaps there is an overarching law,
unbreakable, in this your final year
of getting over. Leave it to the French.
They have a word for Bush Before the Bench.

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