Carthage among School Children

He doesn’t have to listen to pleas concerning

Tax breaks, public works, judgeships, laws,

Missiles, policies, more and more money….

No manically firm handshakes squeeze him.

The smiles and voices aren’t turned up to ten:

You are the greatest man and I am

The greatest man and if there were a woman

In the room, she would be the greatest woman.

Carthage gets tired of being superlative.

He remembers when his father took him aside

And told him he was an asshole from whom

He expected nothing. “Do you understand, boy?

I’ll spell it --- A-S-S-H-O-L-E.”

Carthage understood. He remembers staring at

His father’s well polished loafers.

Now, Carthage reads a book to a classroom of children

About a mole and a rabbit.

They are friends despite their different personalities ---

Mole is plodding and secretive,

Rabbit is always blurting out his feelings.

Carthage wonders whether he is the mole or the rabbit.

Maybe he’s both.

He looks from the book to the children.

Like saints in frescos, calm light glows in

Their rapt faces.

Perhaps he should keep a couple of children

Around his office.

“Here,” he would say to other leaders,

“Are some of my friends.

We all like the book about the mole and the rabbit.”

“Grow up,” is time’s favorite expletive.

Carthage tells the class to come visit him

Whenever they are in the capital.

When the children applaud, their eager hands

Are hope’s confetti.