Keeping Watch

STEVEN ORLEN

KEEPING WATCH

In his backyard he preserves the smallest

reminders of his nakedness.

Now and then something comes over him, like rain

on sleeping dogs. Termites crawl out

of tiny eggs, eat the marvelous wood, and the rain-

water will flush them

like cells through clogged veins, they drown

right in front of his eyes.

At twilight he will watch as if he were God, the butcher

without hands to flay his beef, the landlord

who is always elsewhere

with the food in his back pocket.

This is what he's been told to keep quiet about.

One night the air will break like glass, he will

step through like a scar, the healing messenger,

the angel of insects who has lost his way

and what will he do?

As ifan egg burst inside him, under the thickening skin,

he will close his thighs,

tell them that this is all there is.