Catullus Thinks of Donald Trump

"Spaniards/ use their morning urine/ for tooth wash." -- Catullus

it doesn’t bother me at all
that you clean your teeth
with piss as orange as your hair

    rome is a republic

clodia right now sits watching the street
waiting for me
by a window on the second floor of her husband’s mansion
she does not think of you

    rome is a republic

here    settled in my favorite seat
in an outdoor theater watching an awful play
about gods i barely believe in
i do not believe in you either
o one of puffy eyes and hair of rotted straw
that would shame a wild animal
or even a barbarian    the true order of things
i do believe in that   precludes you
who would turn crowds mindless enough to riot
before your games and after you came to power
who think that the world is made for yourself
while even my loves    all of them
do not think it is made for me

so here i am    watching some idiot on the theatre floor
instead of writing love poems to my clodia
she who may be the one who murders me
before i’m thirty    before the name caesar
is anything but a family name
before anyone with orange skin and hair
of a texture that almost defines disease
seeks by his presence to defame the name
of anyone from any old roman family

    rome is a republic

from Trump Tics (2020)