wrote in college about Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton Does Her Makeup Backstage
Before the First 2016 Presidential Debate

She leans over the table, the halos in her irises reflecting
the ring light,
being careful not to stretch her eyelids
as she delicately smudges the soft rounded wing of her eyeliner.
She is thinking about
Obamacare and the Southern border, of course,
but mostly,
she’s thinking about September 26, 1960
and Richard Nixon,
the sweaty, tweaking, twitchy fool,
outclassed and out-contrasted,
the gray-ash shambling
son of nobody in particular,
and the sweat trickling down his forehead as he spoke:

Thank God for Estée Lauder and Bobbi Brown
and Blue Mercury and Lancôme
and Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder
and color TV
and The Jazz Singer and Il Duce Mussolini
and Columbia Pictures and Comcast
and Dallas and Lady Bird and Chanel two-piece sets
and flashcards
and low doses of dextroamphetamine
and Lester Holt’s long ass face
and Votre Vu Champs-ÉLipsée Lip Crayon in shade Spark –

She thinks how silly he will look next to her,
the big buffoon, the doofus, the Hindenburg,
unreddened, unlined, uncontrasted, unfiltered
and she’s not sure if she’s ever loved a man this much in her life.