Ultramax


There have been rumors about the room
but so far nothing definite.
The guards have said nothing.
Today, knowing they’ll be in the film,
if only as extras, the guards
behave professionally, mildly,
leading cons to that room.
(No convict calls himself a prisoner.)
Inside, the cameras – obvious but
unreachable, unbreakable – start filming.
Restraints somehow unlock themselves and fall.
The cons observe each other.  Those
who graduated to supermax
from various general populations
sort themselves by affiliation:
Aryan Brotherhood, La Eme, several Nations.
Those lacking tattoos
are judged, beneath their pallor,
as competent (i.e., dangerous),
or amateurs – merely crazed, unlucky; prey.
Meanwhile the unfamiliar click
the door made as it closed
disturbs.  The noise of others, change itself
disorients men who, alone for years,
have mutilated or soiled themselves
to earn brief brutal visits from the guards.
And why are there no tables, chairs, or food?
The cons demand answers.
Receiving none, they insult,
then attack each other – white against black,
both against brown, Crips against Bloods,
rapists of women against rapists of children.
The chains lying at their feet
prove useful, swung at eyes,
around throats.  Soon all allegiances break down;
each con believes the last man standing
will be let out of the room, dies in that hope.

But while they struggle they can see
parts of the film
being made of them, on a screen
protected like the cameras by strong,
meshed plastic.  It shows
the room, themselves in comfortable chairs,
talking.  The stage of posturing and threats
passes, the confessions,
seldom of crimes, that go on
interminably, the discovery
of patience and forbearance.  After a pause,
a thick-necked biker, barely looking up
beneath the insignia that fill his brow,
speaks into the silence:
“We come from concrete beds, and cells
the size of a fist, without windows or night.
We don’t want to dream any more
of lust and revenge, but to seek wisdom and virtue.”




Connecting Flight


In those days I never liked
where I’d been or was going.
Life had the texture of my face.
Now, the memories are beginning –
no, how can I put this –
I’m beginning to emerge
from the memories.  All that’s left
is a consciousness of having
*been conscious, as in some dreary
second-semester philosophy course.
There was a layover,
I forget where.  There was a cheeseburger;
food on the plane had been airplane food.
A napkin in my collar.
A careful leaning forward.
(Why didn’t I take off the jacket?)
My grip was no doubt full of tubes and knives.
Aloft, when the light went out, I smoked.
It was important to me
to smoke.  As much as to read –
imposing titles neatly half-revealed.
When the stewardess came by
with her pillbox hat and space-station-blue
uniform, I forget whether
I flirted with her
or tried with my brown eyes to evoke
a faint awareness that I was in hell.
(Was there a difference?)

Self-conscious to the point of exhibitionism.
Flying, a pause between two minor hells.

I separate from him, though I mourn the hair,
even the crew-cut.  There must be
some abstract principle where he
could be subsumed, find peace,
and which I’m just the man
to posit.  What adolescents need,
almost as much as to get laid,
is *dignity.  Which can’t come from within,
because it’s never named or even imagined.
It can only be conferred
from outside, but under most conditions probably
isn’t, and anyway we’re landing.