Inauguration Day Cold Reading While Blindfolded

The future will be different; you cannot see the end.
--Frank Bidart


Part 1— The Humble Public Servant

Is it an ill omen in Virginia
that a bald eagle, scavenging a deer’s head
from a landfill, snags on a power line
and is electrocuted? I’m not Professor Marvel,
but I can see the steel speculum
of change opening America wide,
exposing its burned-out heart.

Part 2—The Shotgun

I don’t have to get the skinny from
our leaders to know you are facing ruin
upteen different ways: I see you losing
your home, your friend being laid-off
from her job, your father’s pension
evaporating. This is the whole
Megillah for the down-and-out.

Part 3—The Barnum Statement

When you find a man crying on the curb
with his head in his hands, pretty soon you
will be sitting next to him crying, too.
Job’s comforters say things just keep getting worse.
Starting over won’t be easy as pie—
or as the Chinese say, easy as
cooling wontons.

Part 4—The Rainbow

If someone breaks your trust, you feel deep-seated
anger. Can an Imagi-Nation sustain
you? Let no one cause you to lose hope,
to crush your cooking pots and burn your boats.
Let the scavengers know the world holds as
much ant flesh as human flesh.