Indran Amirthanayagam
To Oz and Beyond
You must be depressed, Mr. President
watching the drip drip of tabulating,
red wall crumbling, and all the king’s
men turning mum, just your sons
and personal lawyer braying on Twitter,
and yes, an army of a thousand others
bringing spurious charges before
what was to have been your last line
of defense, the federal and Supreme courts.
But your plans were stymied by
the electoral calendar, this unfortunate
need to be reviewed by the people
every four years. Just not enough time
to seal the borders of justice and democracy,
to gut the civic dreams even of your own
party members. Depressing and certainly
cheering to your opponent, that sleepy fellow
who has crawled over the finishing line
with pride while you founder somewhere
in the attic of that now windy mansion,
wondering whether the last ride will come
from a helicopter out and above the Potomac
on the way to Andrews and the final flight
to Mar- a- Lago, then after a swift packing
of bags, by private jet to some territory
in the back of yonder, Oz, beyond.
—Submitted on 11/07/2020
Indran Amirthanayagam is the author of The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur L’ile nostalgique (L’Harmattan, 2020). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
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