From the Lost Diary of Anna Anderson: II. Dalldorf Asylum: House 4, Ward B

By Allison Titus
II.   Dalldorf Asylum: House 4, Ward B

      The white coats still come.     Fraulein Unbekaant,
      they call me.


          Miss Unknown.


      One asks, Do I hear         voices       Do I          see things.

      The doctors here are not very well informed.
      When they appear at the foot of my bed,
      alabaster and looming        I hide my face
      in the sheets coarsened and brailled as if
      boiled in the well of a thousand drowned


      birds.





                                                                 So much worse

                                  is this quiet than the river’s drift and silt.

                                  Here I have only the rasp and cough of the woman

                                  bunked nearest me drooled to choking.

                                  On the floor, a puddle of saliva thickens.

Copyright Credit: Allison Titus, “From the Lost Diary of Anna Anderson: II. Dalldorf Asylum: House 4, Ward B” from Sum of Every Lost Ship. Copyright © 2010 by Allison Titus.  Reprinted by permission of Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
Source: Sum of Every Lost Ship (Cleveland State University Press Poetry Center, 2010)