Excerpt from The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands

EARTH

 

last night I wandered, capt’n, the earth

bright & poison, I

 

staggered, a forced march, yes, then

digging, a grave, made to dig my own

 

grave, someone muttered kiss

my ass, a body walked into the

 

earth, I saw my own body, covering itself

with earth, my body becoming

 

earth

 

—

 

if I understand the memo right, capt’n, we can use

water, but we cannot use earth—that is,

we can simulate drowning, but not

burial—is that right, sir,

capt’n? I’ve read

the memos & I want to do

what’s right

 

—

 

muhammed, ahmed, achmed, whatever

here we are—me & you & these

 

walls again, fifteen feet thick—packed earth

 

baked earth scorched earth & out-

side these walls the sand, on

 

fire, yes, still, & oh

yes, my question, my one simple

 

question—look at me,

do you think I want to be here any more than you?

 

—

 

capt’n: the memo says we cannot bury

the prisoner, but does that mean we can bury his

son? I mean, does it say we can pretend to bury his son?

capt’n, does the memo say we cannot pretend to bury

the prisoner’s son, does it say we cannot make the prisoner

dig his son’s grave, does it say we cannot make the prisoner

place his son in the hole? I’m trying, capt’n,

& he has still not answered my question

 

—

 

a spigot, a hose, a floor-drain

dead center—it drains into

 

the earth, the sand, somewhere out there, out-

side these walls—you can smell it, your

 

face pressed to the tile, it tastes like

tile you think it tastes like your village you

 

think all tile you think all tile you

 

think all tile you think baked

earth scorched earth hospital

 

yellow yolk yellow dead yellow

sulphur yellow

 

—

 

that dream again, capt’n, as soon as my eyes

shut—the one where the car goes into a skid

 

& I can’t pull out, the one where I wipe my ass

but the paper never comes clean

 

 

GREETINGS, FRIEND (MINOTAUR)

 

O heart weighed down by so many wings / isn’t it time to admit / we
are more machinery than gods / that our house is more maze than
temple, that contrary / to popular mechanics we cannot, anytime /
simply change the channel. Bashō / year after year, saw on the
monkey’s face / a monkey face. Here we are, friend, year out / year in,
in our bodies, inside them, seemingly, everything / as promised, ten
percent off. You say / the family car was always warming up.  You say /
wasn’t there a tv show about a minotaur? You say / O heart weighed down
by so many wings, where / is my monkey mask now?

 

 

SELF-EXAM (MY BODY IS A CAGE)

 

Do this: take two fingers, push them into

the spot behind your ear, the spot

 

your skull drops off

 

into that valley of muscle

& nerve—this is the muscle that holds up

 

the skull, that nods the dumb bone

this way & that

 

when you think you under-

stand, when you think you get it—press deeper

 

into the gristle, find that little bundle of

nerves—the nerves

 

that make you blink at day-

 

light, that make your tongue slide in &

out when you think you’re in

 

love, when you think you need a drink, touch

that spot as if you had an itch

as if it were a button, as if you were

 

an elevator, close your eyes &

listen, please, close

your eyes—can you hear it? We think our souls live

 

in boxes, we think someone sits behind our eyes,

lording from his little throne, steering the fork to

 

the mouth, the mouth to the tit, we think hungry

children live in our bellies, clutching their empty

 

bowls as the food rains

down, we sometimes think we are those

 

hungry children, we think

we can think anything & it won’t

 

matter, we think we can think cut out her tongue,

then ask her to sing