——–—from The Lisa Sequence
Little room where a bullet sits, or a place
for legal decisions, where the lethal dose is given, or the private
held space of repetition: the psychotherapist asking
How are we today? A we, aligned at last, unconditional, in a room
of warm pauses, patience, then the soothing circles
of assigned jobs: laundry, garbage, brushstrokes of a mop,
friendship talk, monitored antipsychotics. Ambulatory, patterned hours, the cell’s
circumference, countable cinder blocks, the darkness,
the lock, the tick of a wristwatch through midnight and beyond.
The privacy with God. Then the dawn.
Paula Bohince is the author of three collections from Sarabande, most recently Swallows and Waves.
