Literary Corner: A Duet

Shepherd Piping to Shepherdess, ca. 1750, François Boucher, via Wallace Prints.

In a remarkable new departure, the poet-president has been projecting his imagination inside the persona of another person, a woman in fact, in a new piece published under the pseudonym "Melania Trump". I thought it seemed a little wan and thin, to tell the truth, until I found myself looking at it in conjunction with some recent stuff in his more familiar personal manner, and the two kind of lit each other up. I've taken the liberty, as editor, of splicing them together, as follows:

Duet: Working Overtime

by Donald J.  Trump

SHE

I see the media is working overtime
speculating where I am & what I'm doing.

HE

The corrupt Mainstream Media is working overtime
not to mention the infiltration of people, Spies (Informants),
into my campaign! Surveillance much?

SHE

Rest assured, I'm here at the @WhiteHouse w my family,
feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children
& the American people!

HE

Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey
because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media
loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know
it is not true!

A couple bicker about "the media" which is or are "working overtime"; the imaginary Melania claims it's about what they are doing, speculating on her whereabouts, while to the real Donald (he asserts his reality in his very name, "@realDonaldTrump", emphasizing what a tenuous tethering to it he actually has) complains about what they aren't doing, mentioning the enemy agents he believes have been planted in his nest of criminals by the FBI, or maybe it's "not to mention" in the sense of "not only is the corrupt Mainstream Media working overtime, but Spies (Informants) are observing me as well!"

Don't worry, Melania tells him, sweetly. She's there, though invisible, working hard, if not quite overtime.

But Donald can't see her, and he's inconsolable. "Not that it matters," he says somewhat passive-aggressively, but that thing he told the Russian ambassador and foreign minister on May 10 2017

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” (New York Times)

And Lester Holt of NBC the following day

I was going to fire Comey. Knowing there was no good time to do it!

And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, “You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” (Vox)

is not true, and the media ought to know it's not true. And so they wander off, not communicating, in their different directions and toward truths we can't imagine, so different they are from our own.