The Watchtower | Poetry

Dressed nice, they’ll clarify the things that come their way.

In the name of the father or the mother they embody

and become every lamppost, bus stop, mini-mall, stoplight,

park bench, bodega, Burger King or light rail schedule edifice.

All they need is their standing tower of bilingual pamphlets

colored with pictures that look like me and you. People

keep passing when they just want to pass along philosophic

proficiency. A problem-solving mechanism dwelling

in the secret place of their pleats and skirts

with the highest promises of the almighty shadow.

For just a few minutes they’ll take you to the places

an almighty self can’t, promising your fortress of body

a refuge and all you’d have to do is listen. Once

I got caught. I imagined myself covered in the feathers

of the city, pigeon and cardinal, not afraid of the night,

nor the bullet of the day. And I asked if destruction was

only found in the caesura of their voices, harpooning from the