We who are under surveillance
in more ways than we know
tonight notice the stealthy moon
as it slips behind the trees.
Hiding is useless. That moon
could be an eye. In these woods our whispers
might be seized by murmurous leaves.
Only handwritten notes are safe
if burned or swallowed after they are read.
One is not paranoid
if one is really being followed.
Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI. She's been widely published, recently in The Widows' Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press. When she's not writing you might find her escorting at a local women's clinic.