Optimism

---

She said she sensed she was

           breathing easy

           walking the horse &

I thought she meant

           she was ashamed

           savoring a moment

of pleasure during crisis —

           wandering under

           animal-shadow, cool

at the road’s shoulder

           since what their tie offered

           was the opposite

of tenuous — brass-

           capped braid clicked

           to harness, hanging slack

like wrecked wire

           strung from the heavy

           circle of his jaw

to her grip allowed

           by his nature — kind —

           to be light — but she

had meant schadenfreude,

           laugh riot — her vision

           of the new fool — no one

should be President — reduced

           to retreat-and-skulk,

           his palace, stupid, beaten.

Couldn’t it be fun

           a little, watching ruin?

           I envied her then —

I envied her again.