The Art of Misdirection

It’s a sleight of hand. A trick.
Misdirect the audience’s attention.
He’s on Air Force One. Pull down the shades,
What you can’t see, doesn’t exist.
We saw him board, wave goodbye to NATO, to the world.
Our eyes were wide open. We know what we saw.

Enter the gimmick—the altered prop.
A catering truck hidden from the crowd.
He vanishes.
Because he is a “consequential President.”
Does he know what consequential means?
Does it mean hated?
Just look at his polling numbers. Low, low, lower…

Those Iranians can’t keep up with his magic routine!
Fooled again by the compliant performer feeding us the patter:
“I get a lot of threats”
“I have to go by Secret Service…I just do what they say.”

Not the Director.  Not the Magician. Just the object.
Like making a snake disappear.
And then…
There it is.
Again. And again. And again.

It’s just an illusion. Not real.
Reset. Start again.
Same audience. New trick.

Celeste DeSario is a retired professor of Literature and Writing. Celeste’s poetry appears in The New Verse News, The SportsScribe Literary Magazine, The Changing Times, The Ekphrastic Review Challenge Wenzel Hablick, the July 6, 2026 edition of The Ekphrastic Review , Dissident Voice, Three-Line Poetry and forthcoming in Eunoia Review. Read other articles by Celeste.