Is there no way out of the mind?"
~ Sylvia Plath

The cage of myself clamps shut
my words turn the lock.

I am the jailor rattling the keys.
I am the torturer's assistant
who nods and smiles
and pretends not
to be responsible.

I am the clerk who stamps
the death note
affixing the seal,
the seal,
the God damned seal.

I am the footman who "follows orders."
I have not got the authority.

I am the visitor
who brings a cake, baked
with a file.

Pale snail,
I wave between the bars.
I speak of rope with the hangman.
I chatter of sparks and currents
with the electrician
direct or alternating,
he is beautiful.

I flatter him.
I say he turns me on.

Poet, I tell the cyanide capsules
they have talent
and may fulfill themselves someday.
I read the warden's awful novel
and recommend a publisher.
I sleep with the dietitian
who is hungry.
I sleep with the hangman
and reassure him
that he is a good lover.

I am the ideal prisoner.

I win prizes on my conduct.
They reduce my sentence.
Now it is only 99 years
with death like a dollop
of whipped cream at the end.
I am so grateful, poet

No one remembers
that I constructed this jail
and peopled its cells.
no one remembers my blueprints
and my plans,
my steadying hammering,
my dreams of fantastic escapes.

And even I,
patiently writing away,
my skin yellowing
like the pages of old paperbacks,
my hair turning gray,
cannot remember the first crime,
the crime
I was born for.



SAS