Night Guard: A Poem

before the din of generators stole the night,

crickets & choral hallejuyahs

& the occasional barking mongrel reigned

it was a time of sharp contrasts:

a goggled president had dressed his darkest

to receive the fairest of Vatican gods

the week before, our neighbor & his sons

had been beaten  by masked hoodlums

who first settled to eat their dinner

those hoodlums visited many times more

to steal the nude paintings of visiting girls

that cluttered the artist neighbor’s afternoon

sometimes I wish the artist had drawn instead

the man who confronted the night

with a metal pole with a chewed head,

a face full of talcum & a strip of clothing,

my father.