A Beautiful Woman

I found myself pleading with her.
A dark-haired woman, young, twenty-or-so—and how
could anyone so beautiful appear to understand so little?
I know the beauty I’m referring to here is superficial,
but what if she was also intelligent, and what if her intelligence
was warmed by generosity? I acknowledged, this might be hard to bear.

She stood a little to the president’s left, among the vetted backdrop
of frothy exuberance, “ALL SO BEAUTIFUL!” said the president,
interrupting his speech which was about more bans of this
and more freezes of the other, at every pause the young woman clapped
with enthusiasm, joined the throng of approval for ending the liberty
of trans-folk—an abject community now extinct—implied the president.
And she clapped at separating abuelas and madres from their niños.
Clear-eyed and happy with the president’s proof that violence done
in his name is patriotism, she clapped at the pardoning of those “warriors,”
and clapped for the clearing of a small sovereign state to build something
“unbelievably grand,” as though no millennia-old society
with two million people was involved, and at every pause,
my chest hurt, and I begged her
to stop clapping, to shout,
          NO!
to glare at the president,
then weep in front of the camera, pull out of her long dark hair
something that unfolds into a banner and says,
Shame on you Mr. President!
…and still my pleas bounced off the screen.

Didn’t she know that mercy has been barred at the gate,
that the end of civility stood in the room,
that monstrous unravelings were at the door?

Yet, I could not bring myself to condemnation, and in the end
I held no contempt for her and her considerable privilege,
and consoled myself with a quavering hope: yes, she was attractive,
perhaps intelligent, possibly generous,
but she had not yet aged into beauty.