These Dreams of You

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Later she’ll realize he’s not as small as he seems. Standing upright to his full height, he comes within a couple inches of six feet. But now behind his desk, the chair he sits in yawns as if to swallow him.

Everything sags from his eyes to his clothes. His coat is off and his tie barely tied; his shirtsleeves are rolled up and she’s surprised that his arms are distinctly hairy. He wears dark rimmed glasses that she’s never seen on him. He swivels slightly in the chair eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, a man who once arrived at his own swearing-in for a job by sliding down the White House banister. In the last few years he’s grown old too fast, bowls of ice cream at odds with the black cloud he brings everywhere he goes.