The Winner’s Circle

 a poem by Roger B. Rueda

The street knows its own stench.
Still, the preacher raises
a disinfected hand,
palms turned upward,
fingers trembling with the weight
of another oath.

Applause, like loose coins,
rains on the tiled floor.
The loudest cheer is always
for the man who names
his enemies thieves
while his pockets swell—
not with air, not with prayer—
but with the same paper
we exchange for bread.

It is a carnival, really.
Each mask more ornate
than the last. Each speech
a calculus of disdain:
the corrupt denouncing
corruption,
their voices gilded
with manufactured disgust.

And what of truth?
It sits cross-legged in the corner,
spitting feathers,
while the parade swells outside.

The irony is mathematical:
the most hypocrite
multiplies fastest,
divides the crowd,
subtracts witnesses.
At the end of the evening,
he wins.

History applauds
the neat symmetry of it all.