The American President Hosts a State Dinner for the Australian Prime Minister in the Rose Garden, 2019

White-tailed Cockatoo Adjustment Villanelle

The prime minister of Australia crawls on hands and knees

to the president of the United States of America,

and the white-tailed black cockatoos weep for lost nesting trees.

A ‘pure titanium’ lump-of-coal-in-the-hand-lackey,

the prime minister is serenaded along with mining billionaire fossickers,

the prime minister of Australia crawls on hands and knees.

With a Gulf war looming into coalitional collateral territory

the prime minister extends his oily tongue — his own red carpet botanica —

and the white-tailed black cockatoos weep for lost nesting trees.

It’s the shop of Australia open for business bankrupting futurity

signed with the tail feather of a cockatoo searching for a hollow,

the prime minister of Australia crawls on hands and knees.

Here in the far away but scramjet-satellite-closeness of another ‘land of the free’,

the black cockatoos circle the valley and try to adjust to the slaughter,

and the white-tailed black cockatoos weep for lost nesting trees.

Balance of trade is balance of flight is the feeding frenzy

where food is wing and a prayer and the faith of an arms trader;

the prime minister of Australia crawls on hands and knees

and the white-tailed black cockatoos weep for lost nesting trees.

            John Kinsella