Michael F. Gill and Chad Parenteau

Illustration by James Conant

Thrust

Approaching us
25 minutes after
shock value,
he's walking tabloid.
No, he's not after money,
his softer sell,
he wants respect
in an aghast mouth.
We hear of his apartment
with wall to wall weed,
street-crossing distance
from the T, women knocking
in lockstep booty call,
his uninterrupted flow
of gamer-style cheats
while wagging his dog.
Our ostrich eyebrows
shoot up from the ground.
Good humors not enough,
he unveils as aspiring
neocon, waiting for another
lotto-spiked tax bracket
for full membership,
wartime glory during wartime,
cocktails with Ted Nugent.
He asks us to join him,
says we are mere bricks in his
vaguely pyrametrical scheme,
and we can help him
far more than him us.
It’s not misspeak,
but the first honest dialogue
we’ve heard from any
would-be leader. Then we
remember that Hope and Dope
are similar, with the contrast
that if one is in the air
you can actually tell.
We ask him for money,
as any army needs funding.
He laughs and leaves
to renegotiate.