BEGGARS

Imagination is wrong,
it shows us impassive,
intangible
as spectral animals
huddling in stables,
and strictly speaking,
what it does is train us,
to put into play tactics
and tasks to intimidate
with the law of kindness,
with parables of kindness,
with that spurious lyricism of the afflicted,
and when ragged, disdained
by sunstroke and by the winters
we urge to love,
to the work of charity
as the touch of love,
on the inside we swear
on the bowed heads,
the hesitant foot,
the open hand,
they are the ordinary disguise
at thief’s first glance,
the axe of the executioner between teeth.