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Poem for President Buchanan
Michael Waterson

Your massive granite gravestone stands
in weighty contrast to your wispy legacy,
Old Buck. My home state’s solitary president,
you lie forgotten, dear to none. No wonder.

Under the gun to save the Union,
you shunned a second term
at your inauguration, a startled hart,
bounding away in the woods.

After your fiancée died—
a whispered suicide—
you vowed to remain unwed,
served your four years stag.

Scholars rate it a quadrennial farce.
Proclaiming slavery evil but enshrined,
secession illegal, but … oh, well,
you had Congress rolling in the aisles.

Shackled to you by a common bond,
our Commonwealth, I’m ashamed
you shrugged off duty, treated the office
like a trophy you’d bagged.

Before the cannons opened fire,
you hightailed it back to Pennsylvania,
penned a biography no one read,
awaited vindication.

You’re waiting still, under
your unadorned ponderous monument,
gathering dust in history’s basement,
down the road from Gettysburg.

—
Michael Waterson is a retired journalist originally from Pittsburgh, PA. His career includes stints as a forest firefighter, San Francisco taxi driver, and wine educator. He earned an MFA from Mills College. His work has appeared in numerous online and print journals, including California Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest, and The Bookends Review. His first collection, Hell’s Bells, is slated for publication by Poetry Box in 2022.

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