I saw Dick Cheney today
shuffling in his slippers and bathrobe
in a bus terminal in Laramie, Wyoming
scowling at the toothless woman in the phone booth
and his own reflection in the ticket window glass
He left his suit and tie on a hotel floor
the night of the election and smells now
of sweat and medicines and plastic hearts
old man smells, odors of artificial souls
tolerable only to cheats and liars
I followed him out into the street
where the poets and cowboys studied
one another with weary eyes and all the world
waited, hushed, for the start of the next day
like drunks awaking the morning after a
long night of violence and intoxication
Just before dawn and Dick Cheney growled
at a fire hydrant, at the length of the pipe beneath it
at the water stored there by fathers before him
to extinguish the furies of careless boys
The Great Sky widening above us
flexing in all its expectant morning colors
and Dick Cheney, no light on his bald head
shuffling along the curb after election day
lost in a nation he doesn't remember or never knew
The toothless woman sits on a bus and glances
past the houses and shops on a quiet street
past Dick Cheney, the glimmer faded from his icy lips
The doors of the houses open and America peeks out
Above, the first rays of morning pierce the long darkness