The marks of the beast

The marks offered them
sure and peaceful sleep,
a way to acquire prestige
and a thousand unnecessary things.
To continue along this path,
they had to harden themselves
against the Lamb and against
His Kingdom of Peace and Justice.
The strategy was always
…
to gain control
over all the world’s inhabitants,
to acquire all of their wealth,
and appropriate all their glory,
always in obeisance of the Beast.

From Julia Esquivel’s poem ‘Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.’ (1981), published in Threatened with Resurrection/Amenazado de resurrección