For Edgar Diaz
Your secret self stays caged in a world
you claim you never made.
No windows watch you;
no doors turn for you.
Here there’s neither help nor need.
The only sound you hear is your own breathing,
and the rattle of another lonely cup
against distant bars.
When the warden finally comes,
he tosses you a crumb
you proudly disdain in that way
you’ve become the master of.
No one you know
would disturb your world, my friend.
And if they dared, they’d find you gone
and flowers growing lovely on the ground
you once so zealously tread.
—
Alan Walowitz’s poems can be found on the web and off. He’s a contributing editor at Verse-Virtual, an online community journal of poetry, and teaches at Manhattanville College and St. John’s University. His chapbook, Exactly Like Love, was published by Osedax Press in 2016 and is now in its second printing. Alan’s poem, “The Story of the Milkman” was featured in an article in The New York Times on April 16, 2017. Go to alanwalowitz.com for more information.
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