#829 - in prison

 

12.iv.22

829

3.102

in prison 

wondering why 

they do 

the tightwire

and the swimming lesson

back forth to find 

and who’s in charge 

did I ever get into the pool?

past that

out of the changeroom

round  corridors down stairs 

familiar voices too 

slip past the doors half ajar

a return to the wrong campus

tangled in the little electrics 

wondering for a door at the bottom of the building 

probably wired shut 

and how, anyway, across to the island

where we are now 

others go on 

it’s as if we’re not there 

they are using whatever pictures they like 

mainly discards will do

no reference to the artists 

and I, among them, get the scoff

why bother even asking? 

no one remembers the crime 

but we know 

it’s the adventure too 

and too late notice the long drop under 

turn back, too much of a  risk 

involves reversing the queue 

they must cope

it was some kind of murder 

who why

may never know 

has to have had its reasons 

what she was saying was

it may turn out to have been a mistake 

incarcerated elsewhere now 

because I claimed the old country 

and now that’s where I’m sent 

upon release 

there is no such 

or else they wouldn’t let me go 

I was making the list in my head 

when slipped 

it’s always about getting back 

and the conversation comes 

cat first 

birds of elsewhere 

vestiges now 

where else was I?

and though you are here just for the forgetting 

it’s to a tune we all know