Zechariah

Hillary Clinton

Hillary sat down to tea and scones

with J Alfred Prufrock and Smithers Jones

in a coastal café set back from the sea;

into the cliffs white horses raced endlessly.

The talk was of walking down to the sand,

and making castles that wouldn’t stand,

of collecting pebbles that look like jewels

if you drop them back in the rock pools.

Hillary was angered by this triviality,

being new to the coast she expected formality,

honour for the end of remembered claims

to the corals, the oilfields and the shipping lanes.

She stared at the waves with bitter contempt

(I shuffled my feet with embarrassment)

but as Smithers Jones poured out the tea

he spoke to her sympathetically:

“From poem and song it may be surmised

that disappointment measures our lives,

so we should butter our scones with gall:

but no, that’s not what it means at all.

All that we’ve done for better or worse

ruffles up the universe:

the quietest charity, the gentlest sins.

Oh, do not despise the day of small things.”

Now Hillary enjoys her tea and scones

with J Alfred Prufrock and Smithers Jones

who has taught me how to pour out the tea;

they all spread the jam contentedly.

But up on the cliffs, now playing the horses,

stands Donald Trump in all his glories;

so I cry for the end of Hillary’s claims

to the corals, the oilfields and the shipping lanes.

2017