Boris Yeltsin Goes to Burger King

He smiled his way to the front of the line,
ordered a Double Whopper with double cheese
and plopped down at the table across from mine,
directly under happy pictures of him, Kruschev
and Clinton, all of them diehard fans
of big cigars behind closed doors.
He ate the same way he governed:
messy, loud and fully enjoying himself.
A pickle slid down the outside of his hand,
fell onto his left lapel,
next to another recent stain.
The fine print at the counter
said the beef was fresh from a ranch
just outside Saint Petersburg,
but rumor traced it back to
a formerly state-owned boat from Guatemala,
now in unknown hands --
all minor and insignificant details to a man
who was always a master at grasping the big picture
as firmly as the Mir-sized burger
disappearing at Sputnik-like speed
in his soft pink hands.