from my unpublished second collection

The Watchers

Don Pietro Lucia of Padua, who having peered at Mars through Galileo’s telescope,

swore to God he did not see a thing.

That man digging in the twilight behind his house — the way her eyes keep snapping open,

you can tell she must have fought hard. The crickets watching, too.

So what if your work is lost.

So what if your whole civilization is a shard of pottery puzzled over by scholars.

originally published in The Fiddlehead