CANTO TWELVE. RYAN ZINKE.
Snapping in the breeze, the flag of doughty Ryan Zinke
Warned the common rabble he was eating a fried Twinkie.
His secretaries washed his hands with lustral water, then
Ryan Zinke set about to sell a lake or fen.
Too many fields and mountains did the government retain;
Twas Zinke’s dream to make of them a noble gravy train.
The money thus engendered would support a junket spree
For all the crowding trumpsmen who met longueurs constantly.
But unbeknownst to Zinke, Circe -- goddess of quick change --
Didn’t like his bartering of ev’ry mountain range.
In disdain she visited his office quietly
To make him part of her immortalized menagerie.
A simple tap of oaken wand, and Zinke was a seal.
Circe scooped him barking up into her giant creel.
Her sorcery swept them away unto antarctic floes,
Where chilblains nipped eternally at ev’rybody’s toes.
There she did release him into salty seas to swish
After black crustaceans and walleyed polar fish.
His life was hard and hurried as he hunted after kippers,
Longing to have hands again, instead of clumsy flippers.
But then a Swedish trawler came a-hunting seals and whales;
They ate ‘em fried, with sour cream, from snout to slender tails.
They netted Ryan Zinke with a mess of flapping skates,
And he was quick to realize he was in dire straits.
Back at the ranch -- in Washington -- the trumpsmen meanwhile snored
Away their days while Ryan’s fate they heartlessly ignored.
They’d heard he had reupped and was now skippering a boat --
Or went out with some floozy in a strangely furry coat.
But Ryan was in trouble, and, not knowing where to turn,
He started swearing dreadfully, which made the Swede’s ears burn.
The captain, he was startled when he heard a seal start cussing --
He ordered the poor creature to be spared the final trussing.
Taken to his cabin, Ryan Zinke did reveal
To the captain staring that he was a magic seal.
Luckily the captain dabbled in the black arts, too --
He broke the spell so Zinke became human through and through.
But Zinke did not go back to the fleshpots of D.C.
He stayed aboard the trawler working nets unceasingly.
He found that he enjoyed the company of kelp and char --
More than any trumpsman at a ritzy oyster bar.
(to be continued)
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