DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS

Lying in the rotting sun, shining white,
the embassy turns its air full-blast. Red
lights blink in the sweep of surveillance

and beneath the stairs, an earpieced mustache
bristles. Clicking jaguar teeth over trade
disputes and tariffs, the embassy mock

charges, chuffs, and pauses for a party.
Plush black Benzes push and wade, hippoing
into the complicated crowd, starched and sutured

with champagne. Exploding corks of advice
spring from the ambassador as he spends
the facts of his frightful life like small change

on strangers. In the square, the park is locked,
the wrought bars a zoo for creepers strangling
themselves to sleep, overgrown and dusty.

With tabloids folded and black suits frizzling,
chauffeurs doze, dreaming of their young daughters’
educations and leather that never

sticks in the heat. A bomb in the Accord,
parked just around the corner, is a glyph
of everyone’s grave imagination.