March 31 – April 6, 2014: Cassandra Dallett and David Herrle

I Got Lost In K-Mart

or maybe it was Riches
in the mall
West Lebanon, New Hampshire
I could feel the poop pushing out
I was panicking too much looking for Mom
head turning left and right
up and down
the blurred fluorescent aisles
I didn’t ask any body
just kept walking, crying,
and squeezing my cheeks together
until it was too late.

Praying For Freedom
With Arms Like Razor Blades

(for Mike Mike)

He caught a praying mantis
on the yard

got a jar from the Chow Hall
punctured air into it

chased bugs to feed his friend
whispered through glass

a cup of companionship

a swivel head
wise eyes stared back

understood confinement
and hunger

other inmates laughed at him
then jealously looked for one of their own

an insect among animals

Pelican Bay is not built
to hold humanity

he slid in sticks and leaves
tried to make it comfortable

but he knew
he’d have to set the mantis free

even though he
was not.

The Eyes Have It, Scopophiles

Is sin in the eye?
Sin seems to be in the eye.
Yes, we sin from the eye.

(Has there ever been a reprehensible blind-from-birth person?)

Seeing is deceiving.
The eye is a lustful berry.
It’s the crime scene’s nucleus.

Covetousness, sex fantasies,
premeditations, strategies:
rods and cones, electricity.

(“The optic nerve made me do it!”)

We, the seeing, are in a hall of assaultive
delights, of temptations, of mirrors.
Yes, of mirrors. Vision makes vanity.

They, the blind, are suspended
in a limbo, can’t even see darkness,
relegated to describing groped invisible elephants.

For them music is a woman: dense-
score hair, hips’ round adagio.
Music, she creates synesthetics.
Her name is Glissando.

Sin is in the eye.
The seen are voyeurs’ slaves,
racists’ bull’s-eyes, rapists’ desserts.

We, the guilty, feel the fire.
And we resent those who seem
washed clean by blind waters.

(Innocence is out of sight.)