Asylum Office
Sometimes I sit at my desk and hum along
with the lights. I shut my door, breathe air
gridded together by brown carpet and indifferent
ceiling tiles. I can taste those who killed themselves
before me. In terrible voices they whisper,
Build us model ships. Each takes weeks to build and
minutes to set aflame. At 5:30 I race to my stop on
6th Avenue. On weekends I forage at stoop sales
and outdoor markets. Not many people donate
their best pajamas or everyone’s in love. Perhaps
you prefer bridges or the home where your parents
always listened? In the end, I couldn’t ignite things
that never were. It’s raining. The air is heavy
ahead of schedule. Years ago I was a hummingbird
darting its bill into everything I thought might be
sweet. I hovered for hours over open cocoons.
Asylum Music
You walk down a street a thousand times,
one hand in your pocket, the other conducting
the broken chords of traffic lights. Windows
flush with reflected sky, screens troubled
by the breeze before a front. Your frame
remains constant: gold & chipped & carved
with measures. We know skeletons falter
where bone meets socket, where the flutes
of our legs whistle & turn. We are full
of the many ways bodies breach and trespass.
Note the harm your glances cause, casual
studies of other peoples’ pain. The first time
you met a burn victim you turned away,
unable to focus on the face hidden by scars.
Asylum Trial
These confessions constitute the sum of what
I have to say. Assemblymen meeting in the old
stone house will have these and only these
to distract them through winter. Some day
there will be a thaw. There will be a pulpit
and prayers spoken aloud, after which lesser
entreaties may be whispered. It will be nigh
unto impossible to convict the perpetrator.
Yet the record must reflect. Specific elements
of these crimes must be recorded. The more
salacious bits euphemized. The exhibits B-G,
consisting mostly of graphic photographs,
redacted. The committee may find themselves
unwilling to fall asleep knowing in their hearts
the evidence doesn’t say enough to convict or
exonerate or prove anything beyond doubt.
Asylum Report
The report details findings sewn into a binder,
thread loose as a tongue. It describes a virtual
constellation of nightmares in which a band
of people perform impromptu surgeries on
their enemies, a scenario Bosch might have
been afraid to put down on canvas: viscera
knived open, chests stitched to other chests,
shoulder blades, faces. A team of experts
is building a glossary to explain this specific
syntax of misery. In this case, agony appears
to be its own reward. The group’s migration
leads to the coast. After that they may have
drowned. They may have set sail and found
shores plentiful & serene. We have no means
to verify any of this. We are sorry for your
loss. There is no further record of the colony.
***
Photograph of SM Stubbs by Margaret A. O’Connor.
