He expected to be loved,
perhaps after a brief, respectful
moment of mourning for
the regime we’d left behind.

He thought we would
embrace the new,
being lovers of novelty
and motion —

colors and sounds flashing
across the brain, like
whatever blares on his TV screen
while he rides in Air Force One.

Now he sees us on the screen.
We have signs, and we hate him
in our cities and at the airports,
with hands and feet and signs and

eyes

that look back at him,
that ruin his TV time,
that make him ask:

Don’t they know that I’m the president?

He who assumed he would be loved,
he who believed power was the same as love

until now.