Flogged by color
and its cubist cousins—not
what Klee and Kandinsky
had in mind, but war,
of course, nearly always
breeds genius.
The freakish sun
weeps through green panes
into a tiny cell
tarred inside and out
to magnify heat.
A plank-bed is angled to prevent
sleep, bricks and litter
piled to make the shortest walk
impossible.
Nowhere to look
but the curved wall—
optical illusions close enough
“to tear the victim’s nerves to shreds,”
spiral him into nausea.
We know the body can be made
to lose its recollections birthed in music,
its desire for bread
and sex, its only remaining wish
confession.
Who’d have guessed how easily
the brain opens its many mouths
to red.
The sublime rides a pogo stick,
vaults beyond ridiculous, beyond
heinous—
What luck—
a prisoner could crawl into Bunuel’s
giant eye torn by a razor,
disappear through that ragged hole into
the mind of the maker.
--Susan Ludvigson, 2004