THE REAGAN SPEECHWRITER

Imperious pink man with curling lip:
even on TV, he doesn't so much look
at his peers as regard them. And
what will he say, this man for whom
life was changed for the better by
Ronald Reagan--?

But the TV shorts out; it is storming
outside. I am alone with my snack in
the dark. The speechwriter's thoughts
remain a secret but his image is
burned into the TV, the way it
sometimes happens.

This is a man for whom adolescence
never happened. He was born one
minute and the next he was old.
His whole life, I realize, he's
been pink.


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