John Nieves: “Traitor’s Gate”

How odd to oar through
	water with so much hope
		drown and dissolved, to sip

		the door-dipped tea brewed
from resignation’s tannic tang. Forward
		to what? Whatever sick shades

seeped from the Salt
	Tower in the hour the portcullis
splashed shut. Whatever shadow

	faction Edward called forth to hold
		fast lives until they were grooves
	in the stones, stories on the lawns.

How did the struck woman shriek
	and run and leave her
voice tattooed on Tower

		Green, on St. Thomas’ mouth
to the Thames? I believe you,
		pool, when you reflect the bottom

		of piked necks. I believe you when
	you so sternly silence the gulls, the gulps
in throats, the gray on gray sky.