I would give anything to spend an evening
with President Franklin Pierce
A room in the White House
stained with tobacco
Talking at midnight
The hour great men die
But not President Pierce and me
We were not great men
We died at 4:30 in the morning
or 3 in the afternoon
Great men have great last words, like
"Tis well," or, "I'm a broken machine."
Our last words were
"I'm in something wet."
An hour with President Franklin Pierce
We could talk about the things we could not do
the things we would not do
the things we did that were not enough
We could compare stories
like soldiers compared scars at Buena Vista
He let Kansas and Nebraska go to hell
without thinking of the bonny blue Union
I let Babylon and Sodom go to hell
without telling them about heaven
I would give anything for one dusky hour
to talk to President Pierce
I would give anything
for my hand to clasp his in prayer
Those suddenly sober prayers
where it stuns your heart to know God is listening
and breaks your heart to know He knows
I would give anything
for President Pierce's hand in mine
The Potomac cannot wash them
these clenched and haunted hands of ours
But my hand in his, and his in mine
would do wonders for hands which wrought failures
originally published in Smells To High Heaven: Poems and Prose (2019)
