PRESIDEMENTIA

I met a traveller from a cable-news state Who said: In the centre of a vast parade ground Stand the boots of a statue, taller than belief, Polished smooth by decades of salutes. Above them, the torso leans forward, One arm raised in menace and self-adulation, The other crumpling a Constitution.

Nearby, half-submerged in concrete dust, A broken face lies staring upward — The lips still fixed in a smile rehearsed for cameras, The eyes wide with the promise of permanence.

And on the granite base, these words are carved:

I AM PRESIDEMENTIA, FONDLING FATHER OF THE NATION, VOICE OF AN INCOHERENT PEOPLE.

‘GROCERIES’ IS AN OLD-FASHIONED WORD. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT MAGNETS ARE. DING. DING. DING. DING. DING. DING. ETERNAL AND UNQUESTIONED. BEHOLD MY GLORY AND BE GRATEFUL. LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR.

Nothing else endures. The loudspeakers are silent. The portraits peel from gilded government walls. The chants have emptied from the throats that carried them. Only the wind still practices the old slogans, Dragging them across the stone, While time, the one authority never overthrown, Moves on without permission.

At dusk, the lights come on automatically. They illuminate the statue for no one — A flawless silhouette cast onto bare stone, Already fading as the power grid fails, Leaving only darkness where the shadow was, As if nothing had ever preened there at all.