There is this unpleasantness
to power, the way it contorts,
like the jagged edges of light,
like electricity running through
facial expressions hidden by ruse
but guessed at easily enough.
 
Where I was warned not to be.
I’m taking in the ornate geometry,
the high ceiling painted in blues
that are meant to evoke, I thought,
the ordinary sky so out of place
here where ideas are spoken of.
 
I suppose that the weight of rule
trivializes a single wrong, lost
among the myriads of hallways
the mind travels through, judging
life against life, the abstract rooted
in some mythical magical stuff.
 
Underneath, supported by hands
over polished and elongated shoes,
jostling for a spot by price alone
is the focus of the enormous room.
The way the history of which
provokes an involuntary cough.
 
Where women are not allowed.
They measure by the same rod but
by instinct instead of outer garb,
for they’ve seen in their own child
the desperation of juvenile want,
the high pitch of whine and puff.
 
There is a hole six inches wide
in the centre of the ceiling above
where the true night sky hides
through twisted plaster and rebar.
The walls are black.  The charcoal
of pulverized mothers and children.
 
Little hands, outlines, the edge
darker for some scientific reason.
The throne of power is gone.
In the void, the wind of spirits
violently meshed together to
whirl like flies that can’t take off.
 
 
jam18