Charisma

I’m more Mosaic every week: virtuously
burned, slow of speech. My brother
speaks for me. I am a brutalizer
of the brutalizer, a pillar of correctness
following a pillar of smoke and a pillar
of fire. I am slow of speech. I’ll go
to the top of the mountain alone
for my epiphany, for my glimpse
of all the murderers and orchardists
to come, whom I have been defending
all these years under whatever laws
I can remember with my unbearable
face, that was young when we began.

This poem is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.