Paul Ryan

your name so

perfectly

combines

New Testament

righteous purity

with American

white immigrant

self pity

it must have

been invented

in some brushed

metallic building

the exact color

of despair

you could

walk right past

and never see

where sad

ghosts

think all day

about the most

efficient way

to eat light

they know

we need it

it could be used

to power

every black box

every machine

the ghosts

don’t want

to eat the light

but they must

they work

for immense demons

Paul Ryan

you do too

many years ago

they filled you

with carefully

harvested breath

of emptied factories

then grew

your house

its pretend love

and grim commotion

and the slow

imperceptible

drip of ideology

contaminated

your blood

until you

actually thought

your struggles

and success

were real

so your job

was to put

on your red

hat and go

into the world

to tell us what is

is by nature

just and only vast

forces are real

and even a slight

compassion flicker

is just a selfish

desire to seem

unselfish

and maybe you’re right

there can be

no more

pure water

we are defeated

and must

accept immortal

drought

but I don’t know

it seems to me

the dark triumph

that animates

your tragic corpse

drinks hate

so I will not

drink it

Paul Ryan

I love you

I kiss

your dry lips

to defeat you

Matthew Zapruder is the author of four collections of poetry, as well as the recently released Why Poetry. His poetry, essays, and translations have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, and The Believer. An associate professor in the Saint Mary’s College of California MFA program and English department, he is also editor at large at Wave Books and, from 2016 to 2017, was the editor of the poetry page of the New York Times Magazine. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife and son. This poem appears in Tin House #73: True Crime.