BULLY BROOM

I can’t use that broom anymore
because I squashed a cockroach
with it that had a face just like
Theodore Roosevelt.

I did find a nice broom in my
hall closet that is small and feminine.
I don’t know where it came from.
I love the way brooms appear

In movies and drawings by small
children. Here is a real one that I will
enjoy using for a long time. Soft, silent
bristles, and the broom itself is painted

Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite color:
blue. I am troubled, though, when I
lose a bristle or two: I know that there
is no reason for this

to ever end. Theoretically, it could
continue until I had one bristle left.
Would I continue to use it? That
would be foolhardy, like Theodore

‘Foolhardy’ Roosevelt running for
President for a third term, which
he did, bully for him. One other
reason to be bully for Roosevelt:

He was shot in the chest while
campaigning for President, and
the man just kept going! The bullet
penetrated the fifty page speech,

his steel eyeglass case, his
chest, but not, as expert
hunter that he was and
therefore surmised, his

lung. It makes me flick dust
in a way more lively with my
Theodore Roosevelt blue
broom, wondering if in fact

as all the scientists claim,
there is a small bit of Teddy
in this dust, as there is certain
to be everywhere with everyone.

This would make me happy: the man
who once continued to speak for
ninety minutes, blood collecting
on his shirt,

It will take more than a bullet
to stop this Bull Moose

this is the man for whom my broom
was named, and is with me here, keeping
my small apartment tidy: he is the Teddy
I want with me today: not the man who said

Teddy, not Teedy:

my wife called me Teedy,
and she is dead, it makes
me sad, and sometimes
I weep.