Notes on the Nation

By Jorge Guitart

“It helps having a sixth sense”

said the psychic.

Then she asked me who I was.

I said, “Forget it”

And she said “I don’t get it,”

which convinced me that her faith

remained strong.

Then the shining on the hill

seemed to be stopping,

with the republic looking

more and more like the banana type.

Mistakes had been made, the leaders offered.

And I felt like offering

that mistakes had made themselves

as they say in the prettier languages

like Italian and French — this to make

further fun of the scoundrels.

But they were not in their last refuge

but rather in a fortress, inexpugnable,

an installation with all the amenities.

JORGE GUITART will join poet Gunilla Kester in the Readings at the RIC Series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Research and Information Commons of Daemen College, 4380 Main St., Amherst. He is a longtime professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University at Buffalo.