Sunday Poem for my Father

NIGHT GUARD

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 eat their dinner.

Those hoodlums visited many times more
to steal the lazy nudes of young girls
that our artist neighbor painted.

Sometimes I wish the artist had painted instead
the man who confronted the night
with a metal pole, a face full of talcum powder
& a strip of loin clothing,
my father.