“Physical evidence conclusively establishes that the President
and Ms. Lewinsky had a sexual relationship. […] Ms. Lewinsky
turned over a navy blue dress that she said she had worn during
a sexual encounter with the President on February 28, 1997.”
—from The Starr Report (1998)
Now, thankfully, most Pennsylvania Avenue
interns wash their work clothes after a shift.
In fact, it’s likely become White House policy
to scrub your duds daily. This fed document
cost $40 million and enough person hours
to sail worldwide. That cash could’ve bought
a school. A rural hospital. A public library free
of Starr Reports. But at least interns wear
clean clothes for the sake of no more evidence.
At least we know what baneful scumbags
Presidents surely all are, were, will be, even
if their navy-blue dress looks like starting
a religious war and killing a million innocent
Iraqis; like drone-striking habeas corpus
with double-taps; like using chemical weapons
while golfing at your own eponymous course.
At least we know these sad, chronicled facts
(as stained and naked as it leaves us feeling)
without doubt, without hesitation, without
qualms. At least we know what the trillions
of definitions of “is” are, and maybe, just
maybe, you can’t put a price on that.
Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities, and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances. New poems are forthcoming in Freshwater Literary Journal, Braided Way, San Antonio Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Niagara Falls, he has lived in Ohio, Idaho, and Washington. He now writes from Wilson, New York, where he resides with his rescue dog, Sadie.
