DERRICK

Black water spilt on pale legislation
stains a black hole where the smoke will spill out.

Black water like crude oil with a flow
of fire rains from bullet-holed ceilings,

the floor of Wall Street not shady enough
to withstand this fluid's tidal tug.

Under th'umbrage of the Constitution,
that detrital document subsisting

on a diet of glass and CO2,
that black hole happily halves interest rates

because it knows when the bubble will pop,
shooting soap in the eyes of sky scrubbers

and sand in the mouths of anchored swimmers.
The deserts are growing and the mountains

being strung out, their peaks hooked to low fronts
so they can ski-lift away from the coasts.

Sand drifts toward the vacuum, pinning visages
with the stars of an unconscious class.

Shrapnal sings in the whirlwind of sand,
its cacophanous story later read

as an elegy for the Hubris-humping
hornets who hibernated in their hive

when the nautically naive finally
descried the mercenary clauses

in the roof reified above the see.
That depression chamber, gluon pulling

through the bullet holes in the ceiling like
an Afghani child trying to stay

An American's rifle, squeezes
the heart into a stolid organ

that screams all of the most banal white notes,
a vapid pump known only as Derrick.

THE GHOST PRISONER

I wait outside his cell–
his bleak, windowless block–
and listen for the sounds of movement:
shuffling,
scratching,
the shaking of shackles.
His voice,
an icy breath of air,
every so often
vibrates the pale cement
between us,
that pale cement which gives
my back repose.
I wait outside his cell,
the nudeness of his form
pressing inward from behind my eyelids,
his skeletal limbs
outstretched, clawing.
Abstract victims of his
strip-search lie discarded
back at the gate to the labyrinth.

Will the neighbors hear his screams?
Will their curiosity drag them from their shelters,
across the desert,
to our doorstep?

He was here before I knew this place existed,
before I was appointed to this graveyard shift.
When I started,
the old guard walked out
with boots heavier than tanks;
his lips didn’t part
nor his eyes stray.

When a widow,
face shrouded in shadow,
approached me one
molten afternoon,
her eyes reminded me of that old guard,
human but absent.
She stood before me for some time
until I finally noticed her hand was
clenched,
but slowly unfolding
like the pedals of poppies,
where for a pistil
she palmed a key.

When its jagged steel teeth
bit into my fingers,
the wind unraveled her dress,
dropping it to reveal not even umbrage.
I wait outside his cell.