a guard guards the gate,
a giant drunken guard.
They say that sometimes
I sound like a child - but they
only huddle in the pall of this
prison light. I thought
only prisoners were unhappy, but the guards
drink and are unhappy.
They resent us and are so unhappy.
And they are afraid of us.
The Commandant himself
is a child, who never wanted this job of
running a prison, who schemes now
to save us; and he
is the saddest and dearest bad man
in the whole prison. He actually
let us see him cry . Yes he is the one
who cries. And brings us oranges and Easter eggs.
While the sick lightbulb wanes to the sound of
evening gunfire. Oh evening, the dying
of all light except for this bulb
hanging from the dead center
of the room. In tuberculin light
two black eyes sparkle
and they are the windows.
Those two views of darkness more alive
than the light we live by.
