THE WALLET BIRD
Reading stories of Reading Gaol, while
carrying a pitcher of hard-edged ale to
the prisoners in 29. And I never knew
Orwell liked turkey. Raspberries maybe,
but turkey, no. There are so many things
to be told, un-named, and then re-learned.
-
I get impatient waiting for rain, and the cat's
meow, the elf's return and the sidling forest
of the here and now - everything is, at this
weak point, anti-climactic, and how.
-
On I-95, driving my way to Philadelphia once
more, I pass the rancid old cell of a huge prison
wall - long ago replaced by something new, with
visitors' lounges and nurseries and conjugal-visit
trailers, right across the road. That's how much
it is that things have changed. But I'm still doomed.
-
The old and the hideous, those ways of torture and
pain, the forced confession with the hair on fire, the
hangman's noose in the other room while some rabid
priest volunteers to hear your last confession. Just
like that, I realize the wallet bird has fled. There is no
truth left anywhere at all, and all men standing are liars.
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