heading with purpose in his direction-
not to kill or arrest him,

but to tell him he's been the greatest
sovereign the country has ever seen

but that the world, which some might claim
he ruled like a deity, has made him obsolete.

Dressed in the Imperial Blue he stands
in front of his palace, waiting to greet the soldiers

and treat them to a lavish dinner
where he regales them with stories of the Court

he's surprised he hasn't long ago forgotten—
"I'd love to ride a streetcar," he says

and a month later, in a city bustling and hot,
he has his first ride, closing a book, standing

to give a woman his seat and telling a worker
dressed in coal black, "I wouldn't go back