A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

The Hangman Recalls a Dream to His Son, Abbot

31 That Was Then The Hangman Recalls a Dream to His Son, Abbot Nik De Dominic —Arkansas, 1875 Listen: A room of Geissler tubes: there’s a mulatto girl bent over the green felt of the uptown bunco parlor, manned by me and a northwand’ring Mex’can woman; out the mullatta’s body, tubes. The Mex’can works a lever system, so my seed runs through the elbow joints out the mule’s knees to a basin—a furnace below heats white. None of this bothers me: the syphilis rot around her thighs; the worms once in her mind, I see squirm through the glass vein works that glow, phosphorize the room. She being purged, vindicated by God and His love; by my hand, the Hangman’s, courses water and lye. Cleanse. Then, odd thing, Abbot, I ask Him why? And what did He say, oldman? He said, nothing, but in the dream— the works collapse. Glass breaks, shreds our faces, our hands, my member wriggles on the floor. I, eunuch, ask why? And what did He say, oldman—? I told you boy, he says nothing. But we are all— we are enveloped all in white, white heat ...