Interviewing Nelson Mandela, April 1994

I want to scream into the pink hearing aid nestled in his hairy ear,
Where is your fist?

Thick-throated men in black coats scurry to the windows of the suite,
scour the landscape with slitted eyes, estimate the arc of bullets.
They move me from one chair to another to another
until I am sitting so close his breath sparks moisture on my skin.
The pink contraption, imitating another flesh, fills his ear
and again I want to startle, to prickle his composure,
but then I see that he is not nearly the vapor I imagined.
I assumed his body would be temporary, with fingers, an ear,
an arm misting into nothing at odd intervals, a leg folding into dust,
his smile its own backdrop, the lazy escape of the recently caged.

He smoothes a wrinkle in his gray suit, grins sheepishly,
leans forward waiting for a question.

I stare at his fist resting on the table, ask with my whole mouth.
He hears me perfectly.