TRANSLUCENCE
Giovanni Malito
I wanted to see myself asleep
contended and oblivious
to cries of pain and hunger in Africa,
to the burst of bombs in Lebanon,
to the flight of rocks in Palestine
and to the shots that kill mourners
at the gravesides in Belfast.
But I can only see myself asleep
discontented and fatally tainted
by both morning and evening news.
And there can be no easy escape
nor any turning away from all this
as I can dispose of neither guilt nor shame
for consciousness will not forsake me.