Kissinger at the Louvre (Three Drafts)

             1

Kissinger in black-tie shuffles to the town car

idling at the museum complex edge

between where the glum Pei pyramid rises

and the gardens begin. “Is that—” I say,

and “Yes,” says Jim, baby in his arms,

me shoving the empty stroller to get home

by naptime. Nobody notices, clicking

at each other through camera phones, Kissinger

looking matchlessly neat, clean, ugly and

dressed by servants. His driver’s at the door,

arms stretched wide as in a fish-this-big tall tale

in welcome. The ear-wired bodyguard,

hand on Kissinger’s gray-fur head so it won’t

scrape the door-frame, bends him into the car.

If I were a different kind of poet, I’d put

Kissinger in front of The Raft of the Medusa

blinking at the father weeping for his son

lying dead over his lap as the sails

of the ship that will rescue them are

sighted on the horizon and the top man

in the spout of survivors waves his ragged

undershirt. Or I’d put him gazing reflectively

at The Death of Sardanapalus, a Potentate

presiding amid an exorbitance of fabrics

over his imminent suicide by fire,

slaves bringing in, in order of importance,

horses, gems, plate and favored concubines

for slaughter. I’m not that kind of poet.

             2

Kissinger totters befuddled by culpability,

luncheon champagne and dotage. The car

eats him. I won’t pretend the bodyguard’s

Vietnamese or Cambodian, though that’s

the obvious truth-in-lies move—he’s French,

that ratface-handsome, smoked-out look—

and doesn’t care merde for history. He makes

the old man bow, same move with which

the beat cop, our public servant, submits

the petty criminal to the patrol car,

same move the anguished teenager got—

half-protective, half-corrective or coercive,

half-kind—after the arraignment for leaving

her newborn to die in a rest stop dumpster.

Anybody can understand the girl, and even

the purse-snatcher. Bodyguard bends Kissinger

gently in, portly little Kissinger, gloves his head—

anything hurt will be the hand of the servant.

Ecru upholstery with oxblood accents, minibar

something like a safe, CNN muted to newscrawl

and the anchor’s frozen-flesh face. The latest assistant,

gender irrelevant, busy with a BlackBerry across from him,

root beer-colored eyes and preternaturally neat hair

of La belle ferronière, keeps the lap desk, emergency

Magic Wand Stain Remover Stick, eyebrow brush

and dossier of Opinions in what looks like

“the football”—the nuclear war plan suitcase

Presidential aides carry at all times—but isn’t.

             3

The one camera flash as he got in

gave Kissinger a headache. As they start

for his Avenue du President Wilson hotel,

the Rue de Rivoli sliding by in a haze,

he falls uncomfortably asleep to the anodyne

glow and murmur (“tournez à gauche”) of the driver’s

GPS device. The relieved assistant

opens an Imagist anthology. In Osaka, Oslo or Wasilla,

Alaska some weeks later, a woman at her kitchen table

uploads Paris vacation photos to her laptop.

“Who’s that behind me?” A dark figure. “He looks familiar.”

“How should I know,” says her husband.

“I’m trying to get Baby to eat more potato.”

“Oh well. I look fat in it,” she says. And deletes.