The Tower
A poem
The square is packed
Freezing ghosts dragging their own soaked blankets,
The hems blackened, collecting grains of cement and cigarette ashes.
I think of last night’s tempest and how
Rain can make tears invisible.
Musty children run from side to side.
Suppressed plays leave their minds as they leave
The settlements; a doll’s corpse hides deeper into the mud,
The irretrievable youth, no time for a funeral.
Masked people walk by as if the plague had a face.
They cover their eyes and uncover their mouths;
Muffled judgements, loud thank-god-it-isn’t-mes
And the fastest pace you’ve ever seen from a human being.
The river has overflown with fishes no one wants to catch
And hungry dentures rose from the margins like carnivorous buds
Trying to bite into the ankles of anything that moves,
Anything with leftover life to spare.
Under the tunnel, a parade of wasted days
Is forgotten under a layer of ink.
The calendar of graves flips its pages aggressively,
If you behave, we might be able to squeeze you in.
Deaths must be delayed, mournings postponed.
The hordes want to be immune to the others.
To push the needle through the pupils and
Embrace the cure for knowing
That the walls are crumbling down.
© 2020, Giulia de Gregorio Listo. All Rights Reserved
