Eternal City

Aiden Heung

 Your Guardian Angel is calling you…
 All the time…
 You have probably not been able to hear the message.
 Now is the time to get it.
 — Part of a spam email sent to me

A handful of night here, and your
stars too have dimmed like fish eyes. The guardian
has placed a chair by the door, solemn like an angel.
No people, all things, but he is;
the street opens up at the end, calling
like a mouth, like a wound you
would carefully dress. All
light of lights, haloed like a misread the-
ology above a confused city—here, time
is vague as a concept and no place for you, or you, or you.
What you have
is what you’ll lose in this city of probably
another million yous, not
a man of hope but a man of could-have-been,
who has not been able
to see, or figure out where to.
Nobody knows what comes after Sunday, but listen, hear
the angel’s calling, the
same message,
repeated like a tedious song, as if now
from the bottom of a pit he sings, as if he is 
not celestial, but more like you, the
eternal you, the cesspool you—Time
to arise, to wake up to the day, to
understand you’ve tried to get
somewhere; still, you are far from it.