One day the dictator happened by a window
and saw all the women of the world
seated on his lawn.
The dictator asked would they share tea
by the pond, by the pool, by that body
he had yet to get to given the time,
the demands of the job.
One woman spoke for the others.
She said, yes, they would have tea
(those sugar cookies look wonderful, too)
if he’d agree to eat his foot
on a rocky hill top and if they could please
watch him dine this would fit with the rules of courtesy.
A saw blade appeared out of the crowd like an alligator.
The dictator said he’d rather just have the tea.
The spokesperson said
they’d rather the dictator agree but that
either way they’d have their tea
on a hill top
where the wind becomes a tiger dashing from a story
of crows and the birds can be seen already gathering,
their eclipses racing like shreds
of black paper through the chalky stone.
The dictator heard the call of something idiophonic
and sad brush his ear. He raised an elbow against the birds,
ran out the back, and rushed
into a country
ragged as the growl of a cat.
