Indira Gandhi Speaks to Nixon
       

It's unpleasant, talking to men about war—
like a visit to the gynecologist, when you want
to ask, Is there a woman I may speak to about these matters?
But I am stuck with him, quipping about
the gray streaks in my hair, joking
about Frankenstein's bride, and I say, yes,
Mr. President, I was not made by God:
a political woman is always made by man.
Don't think I don't know what a man like him
says about me behind closed doors.
He'll call me a witch, maybe worse,
but witch is my favorite. If only
I had such power—I'd curse them,
give them all vaginas and let them fumble
as they try to rule with such a handicap.
To see Nixon in a dress, his looks under careful
scrutiny, what a fantasy. I admit it,
this is what I think of every time
we meet. I stare at the wall and imagine
Nixon painstakingly applying lipstick
to meet with me and I think,
Not this old hag again, nagging about Russia.
It's a shame we have to run the world this way,
under the fists of men with egos so frail
they start a war. Nixon will call me
a cunning fox, he'll say I suckered him again,
but we're both cursed: he'll ruin himself,
I'll rely on men to protect me from ruin,
and we know how that ends for a woman.
And when the men who loved me grieve
my death, they'11 shed blood and not tears.
I scribble in my notebook, never meeting his stare,
and his voice finally stops, waiting
for me to fawn at him, and I look up:
How much longer must we speak, sir?

Tweet

Copyright © 2018 Anne Champion All rights reserved
from The Good Girl is Always a Ghost
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission