The Tower

.A foreign friend is
tormented          
by television characters

Pahn comforts her         
                                     in a classroom and
          promises to help her …

…Later                    
Pahn learns                                                                
                   that the characters have converted
                to Christianity and taken 
             her to a tower…

…Pahn transmigrates
into the tower that seems to be                    
                                                         floating
in the darkness
on a platform
under
         a roof
it is
swaying             
in the
wind
and
there is
a small
group
                                      of people

watching one of the converts   He
is in a trance   lying on                                                     
              the flagpole     jutting into the midnight

fogged sky     his arms
                                                  are out as if to fly
                or together     looking down   
                as if to pray
and Pahn is afraid                                              
         of this dim
                     and lofty
                  place    with the presumed
                                                                 masculine god

He wants to go     and if   his foreign
                                                                  friend
does not want to go       
                              with him

he is ready to
                               leave her
with the Christians
            to fend for herself
 
                                                   but looking down
                             through              the hatch
                                                        he finds he is afraid

to descend

.

.