Post Howard
In his slowly rising cage
the inspector of underwater prisons
files his report to the Ministry of Hatchings
and where the script says "Abandon"
he digs his crab-like claws into
the minutiae of all dredged-up grief.
When we look in the mirror
our faces do not know us
and our hands fall asleep in their glum citadel
eyeing the chaos of a life.
What have you gathered about you?
Why these pale shards
arranged like signposts guiding the lost
to a missing waterfall?
The inspector is trapped in his gently rising cage,
in the flurry of his jacket and boots,
as the life he almost had, the parallel mansion
with its turrets, its swings and slides
and balustrades, its five-tiered gardens,
drifts downward to where the plankton feed.
A glint of light passes down the cable
showering with its sparks
the prison world below him.
However he turns the phrases
cruelty defines him.
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