from “Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters”

Last night, I visited a captivity story. 
I was sitting in a lean-to made of bark 
with Ella Ruth, both of us teenagers— 

her ebony skin, her black hair touching 
her tailbone. I looked at her hard, & 
she came back to sit beside the fire. 

From a slit in the rawhide doorway 
I could see my tribe in surgical masks, 
& as dogs began to howl I woke up.

Strange how the mind finds tenderness  
even in captivity. Or how amidst 
this being held in isolation we dream 

of masks. I see my ancestors, too,  
at the Carnival of Venice, a bouquet 
of myrrh, viper flesh, & honey 

in the plague doctor’s long beak— 
the face of death meant to ward off death. 
They look back through the silver mirror. 

Remember traveling to Siena, 
& we entered that semi-dark room? 
Those strange garments—the garb 

worn by a secret society of men— 
men who wore what we thought 
were pale KKK robes & masks. 

But they had cared for the contagious 
sick, & escorted them to the here 
& after, their faces always hidden. 

Yes, we descended the Ospedale’s 
winding stairs stories underground,  
through a long hall to a hidden room  

where a small medieval oil painting hung, 
the Confraternity of the Night Oratory, 
St. Catherine of Siena holds the brothers, 

their faces coved in hoods & white robes,  
under her cloak. They worked shifts  
on behalf of the many struck with plague. 

The hooded prisoners were led behind 
medieval-thick walls, into their tiny cells 
where solitary penitence was paid twenty- 

three hours a day. No one dared to speak 
at the Eastern State Penitentiary, eyes 
staring always at the cold stone floors. 

Beans, flourless bread, shad, lobster, 
corn, peppers, & a few grains of salt. 
Now, Al Capone had a rug & a radio. 

On a poor man’s cell block, uncle Gussie, 
who robbed a bank, spent years  
in the prison built like a wagon wheel. 

The low cell door forced him to bow  
when entering; the skylight above— 
the Eye of God—a reminder he was watched.  

When his mother died, two brothers,  
a priest & a cop, left sepia photographs  
of the funeral. Now, cats & ghosts roam. 

Lord, this big country. Land of plentitude 
ravaged, heart & gut torn out in the name 
of civilization & progress, & just plain old 

unsung unction, low-down skullduggery 
& theurgy. Nature ripped out by thew 
toned in old world prisons. Horsepower.    

Even with hard times here, hug the moon 
devastatingly close, & beat down the door 
with true love. Wherever you are, bless us. 

Yeah, we’ve both known a few in the joint,  
robbing Peter to pay Paul, or caught  
blowing time with this one or that one.  

Some excuse to keep rats on a wheel, or in a cage.  
Look, time moves at least twice at once now— 
back & forth, slow & fast. I held my palm 

 on my father’s back when he bent to whisper  
in the ear of the dead, & two men in black  
draped a white handkerchief over a face.