The room without shadows
is where the science of spring
begins, where nothing may be
hidden once the concrete walls
are removed, adhesive mortars
made into dust balls for field
mice and silverfish to play with,
all shapes distorted by primitive
lenses, mirrors, camera tricks
that make visions into statues
for white birds, mourning doves,
to land on.
The magician's top hat that
spawned them is lying on
a fortune teller's table, Ouija boards
gone, berserk voices from past lives
intoning a litany of horrors suffered
at the hands of a torturer and his
apprentice, the untreatable wounds
inflicted, a stigmata on the newly
painted walls, bleeding an image of
a false messiah losing definitions as
the prisoners grow weaker, their life
forces slowly extracted by pliers
as bones from useless fingers, toes;
after each useless subject is removed,
fresh coats of white paint are applied to
rooms where no shadows are allowed;
shamans suggest spirit souls follow
a circular path when they exit this
life but not what happens when
the way is blocked.
Alan Catlin has published over forty-five chapbooks of prose and poetry and been nominated for thirteen Pushcart Prizes. He was the winner of Main Street Rag's International Chapbook Contest in 2000 for his collection, Ghost Road. His latest volume of poetry, Drunk and Disorderly: A Selected Poems, was released by Pavement Saw Press in 2003.
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