Watchers Poem by Ernest Hilbert

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

1.

No longer three. Tonight we see just two,
Who loiter and seem to watch us below
From the street—vaguely framed by the window
Like a spy photo—there, in the lamplight.
For weeks now, I've counted and there were three,
But I'm almost certain that just last night,
And again tonight, there are only two.
It's better, now that you've come to join me.
It's easier with two sets of eyes to see
What's really been going on out there.
Together we make an effective pair.
It's safer this way. Right? It is. Yes... Yes.
It's now two to two when they watch us,
And no third, not now, now that I have you.


2.

You see the two, the two that linger there?
Of course. They're always standing there.
And you? Where were you before you came here?
Around. You know. All around here...
It's hard to make out much about those men.
Oh, no, I think you've got it wrong.
Got what wrong? You told me. Tell me again.
Not men. I've known that much all along.
Not men? They're surely not women. Oh, no.
Not women and not men, I say.
You talk, but I can't understand a word.
I try to fix my focus, but they stay blurred.
What do we watch? What watches us below?
Two things from very far away.

 

3.

I dropped awake and felt it was a dream,
Or seemed to be. I dreamed our prey
Was waiting, just like us, for something too.
When you watch a thing, what you seem
At night to see, or what it seems by day,
Adjusts, and doubts, like enemies, accrue.
And when the watchers watch each the other
They're too busy, and never pause to think
Of what occurs in the time it takes to blink,
Or that both might be watched by another.