DAY 6: At home week 2 (a sestina)

Something from an old notebook; I am going to count it as my at home this week. (Be minful that this online format may change the line breaks a little).


Parole
First memory of the morning—footsteps
that sounded on the dusty ground of the prison
like steel-toed raindrops. The sleep that barely found me was the eye
of the storm that brews in the courtyard below. A tear
slides down my face, for the hunt
in progress has ended my slumber—jarred by the stirring beyond these walls.

Shake the morning’s dew from my head and find the far wall
is papered by a large, dark man who steps
cautiously towards me as if he were hunting
some furious beast. “I assure you I’m not dangerous imprisoned.”
He smiles, he doesn’t know my language, but tears
me from the urine-stained cot a sadistic satisfaction in his eyes.

A priest greets me at the door with sorrowful, avoiding eyes.
He would like to help me, but I see the crucifix on the wall
behind me and think, “Who saved him?” If only I were still Catholic…long since torn
away from that disillusionment. I turn from him towards the steps
that lead me to my release, far beyond the prison.
Rays of light strike me like the arrows of the sun-hunter.

Frantically try to shield myself—hunting
for clarity. Hoodwinked by the light’s haziness, my eyes
finally find themselves. Guards line the farthest side and a sniveling mass of a prisoner
the other. Fuego. The ground becomes a palate blood, saline before the canvas of wall.
A uniformed man steps onto the Dias. A guard tears

my knees from function with his stick. Shirt torn
from my back—a flogging maybe—the man hunts
for the words—conspiracy treason. Sticks step
across a drum. Sadist offers me a cigarette and a blind for my eyes.
Take the free smoke. Towed to my predecessor’s pool, I wish the wall
would embrace me like a protective lover. Another priest from the prison

asks me if there is anyone I would like to write outside the prison
I blow smoke into my eyes. Maybe I can blame it for the tears
that have arrived like unwelcome guests. My only love, the wall,
knows my sole desire. My hands hunt
behind me for a door that I hope my eyes
had missed. The priest hangs his head in the soon to be memory of me and I step

back hard hoping for mortar of the prison will give way. Fuego. Bullets hunt
my organs with precision as they tear through me, leaving me with a dozen blind eyes.
Painted on the wall with each bullet’s brushstroke, I crumple. Sadist takes my cigarette—I die to his fading footsteps