Someone told me you were seen
running behind that beast you’d bred,
Its hide bristling in flashes ahead,
and you, in the wake of stench,
didn’t mind the slaps of slaver.
Then you saw steps, the police.
You, who’d said, Never, this is war—
but that was online Mimesis
more real than real, not this—
You stopped, remembering how close
you stood at morning’s rally, his small eye,
trapped inside a wad of wrinkled fat,
afraid as you were of his lies.
You slunk back to your hotel.