Surveillance
       

I bite them to stop from talking,
from pronouncing the disassembly
I witness every day at work;
my student's eyes have not seen justice
since it left them at birth
without even a token to remember,
without walking from room to room
and placing its hand on the doorways
while everyone slept and dreamt of a place
where the hungry wouldn't have to bite
their nails for food. There is memory in
the accumulation of guilt like sediment
in a riverbed collecting bones and shit.

Rot is just another form of life
and who's to say there isn't any
underneath their eyes
underneath the violence of speaking,
of saying I love you and waiting
to hear it back, to echo, to understand.
I can try to save them if I only spoke up—
A terrible anxiety lives inside a paycheck.
Money is just another word for Hush.

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Copyright © 2021 David Campos All rights reserved
from American Quasar
Red Hen Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission