When I worked in the prison, it reminded me of the military, and

when I worked in the military, it reminded me of the prison,
and when I worked in the prison, I was surprised at how many
inmates stabbed themselves.  I thought they would stab each
other, but they were united in the deaths of their nights, their
tears, their dress, their laughter, their hornet-mouths, how they
would tape books to their chests under their shirts in the night
so that if they were stabbed it would be a shiv embedded deep
into Shakespeare and I thought of Hamlet inside the pages, dead,
as he will be for a billion years.  And when I was in the military,
they would make us stand at attention for hours, waiting until
at least one of us pissed his pants, this strange ritual where
they would drown us while we sang the National Anthem.
I remember screaming into mirrors in both.  I remember
screaming into graves.  I remember how my sanity was
taken, eaten, bouqueted, the yelling of borders, all of
the thin abandonment.  One time a student in class said,
Why are men so violent? and I spoke up from the back,
because I always sit in back, because they can’t come up
from behind you in back, and I whispered, Trauma, loud
enough for the class to hear.  Yawns.  I remember the first
guard killed in the prison.  He was divisible.  I remember
the first E-3 that was killed in the military.  He was anywhere
but home.  I remember punching myself in the face in the military.
It helps to let everyone know to stay away.  I remember the corridors
in the psych ward.  I remember my bunkmate’s schizophrenia.  He was in
a motorcycle accident, no helmet.  He said he heard the blessings of the world
after that.  He said they are taking all of his money now.  The military was
a prison.  The prison was a military.  I remember all the men.  I remember
all of these men, drunk off of the endless porn of killing . . .

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