Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned

this mangy plot where

by now

only mothers still come,

only mothers guard the nameless plots

and then sparingly

Peepholes burnt through the metal doors

of their solitary cells,

just large enough

for three fingers to curl out

for a lemon to pass through

for an ear to be held against

for one eye then the other

to regard the hallway

to regard the cell and inmate

peepholes without a lens

so when the guard comes to inspect me,

I inspect him.

Touch me, he said.

And through that opening

I did.