Color Me Cautious

Buttoned down,

suited up,

I appear before Congress

for the 88^th time.

I ride the pride

of the Department of Justice lions.

At these hearings

no ostentation of peacocks

flusters me.

I rely on my shrewdness of apes.

 

Could you repeat the question?

 

Chairman Nadler leads

this business of ferrets.

A Republican unkindness

of ravens pecks at

my faded recollections.

 

I do not want to get into that.

 

An exaltation of larks

lifts my findings

before the Judiciary Committee.

The Democrats question me,

a lifelong Republican,

and hope to flush

a cast of hawks

to swoop down on

ten obstructions of justice.

 

I do not subscribe to your conclusion.

 

The crash

of Republican rhinoceroses

does not frighten me.

 

That is beyond my purview.

 

Back and forth

the charm of finches

encourage me to stray

outside the boundaries

of my report.

 

My report is my testimony.

 

A siege of Republican herons

pause—ready to pounce

on any sudden movement

in the waters.

 

I pass.

 

A murmuration of swallows

bent on impeachment of the President

baits me

to say the magic I -word.

 

That is beyond my purview.

 

The skulk of foxy

Republicans hem me in

with the President’s own words–

a witch hunt!

 

Our investigation

was no such thing.

I turn away from

this plague of locusts.

As I sum up,

journalists

true, not fake,

hover like trout

waiting for any morsel

of criminality

to gulp down.

 

That is beyond my purview.

 

I falter,

  Could you repeat the question?

 

No longer can I leap

like leopards.

It is the sloth of bears

that has brought me

to this parliament of owls.

 

“You have decided

not to decide

to charge the President

with impeachable offenses

or to exonerate him

of obstruction of justice.”

  That is beyond my purview.

 

The Russians interfered

in the 2016 election.

They are doing it

while we sit here.

And they expect to do it

 

in our next election.

 

I cannot do your job.

you in Congress cannot pass

or ask to repeat the question

or say

that is beyond my purview.