The Dictator’s Double
Some feel sorry for the man who looks like the late Dictator,
the way the crowds part and turn like folk dancers when he walks by.
Some follow him at a distance with trigger-happy eyes.
Some look at his hands, think them un-stately hands,
they curl their lips as he peels a banana.
Some stare at his wife, think her a woman incapable
of satisfying a Dictator, see her unenthusiastic face,
barely trying, under the weight and chink of his medals.
Some imagine the Dictator in his palace (which is gold),
they picture his shelf of severed heads,
they see the Dictator watching the workmen fix the shelf,
see him tilt his critical dictatorial head to align the bubble.
Some resent that he takes a leisurely stroll, see the bodies
of his victims under each sandaled step.
Some look at his ring and think it rather modest
for a ring paid for in blood. Blood ought to buy a more opulent
ring they complain, that much at least is owed to the dead.
Others look at his children, observe the way they segregate
their toys, privilege their favourites
and banish the weak and the old,
these are not the children of a double.
They begin to look for signs of guilt in the double’s smile,
of humanity in his frown, they suspect they see both in both.
They begin to doubt this so-called double.
In great numbers they storm the Dictator’s burial ground, heaving
stones, scraping dirt, hacking at the coffin lid with rocks.
They grasp bones and teeth and ribbons; they drag the impostor’s
skeleton through the streets, march on the city square,
chanting as one, The Dictator is alive, long live the Dictator.