Attica 1977

A skull
my friend says, it's like
you're inside a skull.
And then I feel the pressure
the way the ceilings push down.
I hunch up,
tuck my neck into my shirt.
The deeper I go in
the more the tunnel narrows.
The first time I didn't know
the soft yellow patches
in the wooden beams
filled with plastic wood
were bullet holes.
Yeah, Mustafa said,
you need to look up,
see what's around you.
 
*
 
Near Christmas, the class was small
two men were locked down, and the others
off the count—too late to make it,
so only three men showed, Shea
laughed, pulled out
a thin jailhouse joint.
We smoked it there,
watched the snow fall in the yards,
outside.
And then we read
to each other, the words
spinning out.

*
 
On my way home
I skidded in the drifts—
first left, then right
until the tires grabbed.
I thought of the floodlights
and the snow-filled yards, tiny barred windows
aglow in the storm.
I thought of the troopers in the rain
that September day, the rifles, shotguns,
poking out above the walls, waiting.
I think of the Convent of the Capuchins
in Rome,
where the monks led us
into their cavern of 4000 skulls,
intricate figures reshaped from the fallen,
a grinning dance of death.