A stain on the ceiling of the old apartment
Resembled a face in profile
We covered it over with the most opaque paint
But I could see it there until the day we moved

Our cat a most underfoot creature when alive
Did not lunge from the shadows
But sauntered from hiddenness to interrupt the step
For years I half-tripped over Bunbury’s ghost

And for years I saw a different spectral image
The burners of books and bodies
But when the living candidate pledged to round up illegals
The mob chanted their fury and approval in the ancient manner

The festival of rage and adoration
The same assemblage more or less
That cheered on the auto-da-fé
That jeered on the road to Golgotha