Poetry by Andrés Castro

Death Watch


In the shade
of a tall tree,
a mangled crow

lay twisted--
fluttering.
Alone,

I took steps
towards it,
stopped.

It dug beak
into earth--
dark head wobbling

like a top
losing spin.
On its right side,

slapping dirt
with free left wing,
if it could have

crawled away
it would have--
it wasn’t bird.

I took more steps,
stopped again--
at the CALL! CALL!

from a crow
across the street
high in tree.

A friend, family?—yes!
With each step
one more joined in,

until a storm of calls
came down--
that stung like hail!

They would not stop!
Fallen crow
rocked in place,

madly going
nowhere!
Enough!

I crossed the road
to get away.
Heard

crow calls
stagger. One-by-
one ending,

until the street
began quieting,
until pure silence.

Stopping one
last time,
looking back,

I saw the mangled
crow put down
its head--

the others,
still in the trees,
waiting.



                                                 

Terrorism

"In this conflict, America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of
morality... "I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every
effort to spare innocent civilians from harm…"We have no ambition in Iraq except to remove a
threat and restore control of that country to its own people…"I know that the families of our
military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon…”
                                                                                                                 George W. Bush, March 19, 2003

I. Looking straight into his eyes, she swears she knows who he really is…and will tell. He says,
“Why not keep it our little secret and call it even?”

She calls him a loser and says, “I bet you shook like Jell-O over there.”

He calls her a whore at heart. “If you had a heart, instead of that icy cunt,” he says.

II. In bed, she rolls him off; and he lands hard, like a log in the dark. He says, “Get help, I can’t
move my arms or legs” The sound of war crashes in his ears. She turns on lights and looks at
him—waiting to hear more—all she hears is breathing.

Naked, she walks passed him, passed their wedding pictures on the night stand, passed her
ringing cell phone on the dresser, and enters the bathroom. When he hears the toilet’s flush, then
squeaky shower faucets, he closes his eyes and trembles.

III. As he hovers near the ceiling, he looks down on himself, then her, and swears, “I’ll get even.
I didn’t shoot six fucking Haji to get home and take this shit from you.”

Wearing her favorite little black dress, she twirls in front of their full-length bedroom mirror and
doesn’t hear his curses pouring down on her. As she slips on black stilettos, he begins to fade
into a powdery white mist…disappears with the last pass of her red rose lipstick. “You should
have stayed there in a hundred pieces or come home in a box,” she says. Coward.

IV. Before leaving the room, she kisses his corpse on the cheek—whispers, “Welcome home,
soldier boy. Thanks for the benefits and all. I’ll frame your purple heart and hang it in the living
room for the wake. To be fair, I’ll invite your buddies and her—I bet you never gave that
precious little bitch any black eyes. She would have left your ass.”

V. Seconds after gently shutting the door behind her, she lingers—finally deciding to tip-toe back
into the bedroom. Bent over him, she stops her right hand an inch from her red kiss tattoo near
his mouth. “No,” she says, “I didn’t disturb you at all putting it on. Why bother you now? Let
​someone who doesn’t love you like I do rub it off.”

​

Bio: Andrés Castro, a PEN member/volunteer, is listed in the Directory of Poets and Writers. His work has appeared in the anthology Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and About the Police, as well as in print and online journals including Left Curve, Counterpunch, The Potomac, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Newtown Literary, Acentos, Pilgrimage, New Verse News, Montreal Serai, and ImageOutWrite. He also regularly posts work on his blog The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

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