Cami Zinzi O’Brien
President Non Sequitur
I’m not going to lie
this poem is writing itself.
I’ll say it with great respect.
She’s not my type
used to be what you told that girl in high school
when you weren’t interested in dating her.
That just shows that when you get good ratings
you can say anything.
Anything? Yes. Anything:
I want to make a deal that works,
so let’s not make it.
And let’s not make sense
while we’re not making the deal
that works.
I thought being President would be easier than my old life.
You mean, the old life
when you golfed all the time
and abused women?
I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist.
I think that would be, maybe, going too far.
You are correct.
Now you have gone too far.
I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay,
but I am a traditionalist.
Even farther.
I will build a great wall—
and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me.
I don’t believe you.
One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace.
Good people don’t go into government.
Finally, you are making some sense.
It’s freezing and snowing in New York
—we need global warming!
Spoke too soon.
And when you’re talking about an atmosphere,
oceans are very small.
Way too soon.
Eventually we’re going to get something done
and it’s going to be really, really good.
Thank God.
I was starting to get nervous.
Cami Zinzi O’Brien is the author of A Welcome Roughness (All Rivers Press, 2010). Her poems have appeared in Tryst, FutureCycle Poetry, The Pelham Quarterly, and 2 Horatio, as well as in the anthology Lavanderia: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash and Word (Sunbelt Publications, 2009), edited by by high school English teacher for the past 20 years, O’Brien lives in Darien, Conn.
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