Devon Balwit
Know
The direction of Paradise isn’t clear.
Pilgrims need savvy. The border patrol agent
offering assistance might duct tape you to a bed.
State security men in neat uniforms might drag you
off campus and beat you until you fit in a trunk.
You might enter your embassy only to emerge
in pieces. That road through the green wood
might flare a maelstrom of cinders. Your roof
might catch and burn. You might walk your shoes
to ruin only to be turned back at the border
or worse. In your head, the 91st psalm: I will not fear
the terror of night, nor the pestilence that stalks
in the darkness. The elderly professor repeats it
on the subway platform after being knocked down
by a commuter. Or, spared the arrow that flies by day
and the Slough of Despond, even the alluring may entrap,
a Vanity Fair of gewgaws, each with its secret chip
listening in. Pilgrim, you also listen in. You’ll hear
a small heartbeat—hope—steady as a sonogram,
even though as yet, you can feel no movement.
Know that, within you, Paradise gestates.
Devon Balwit is the author of A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Poets Reading the News, The NewVerse News, The Ekphrastic Review, Peacock Journal, and more. For more of her poetry, reviews, collections, and chapbooks, visit her website, devonbalwitpoet.
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