Military
Forensic Prisoner #58,102
It
was March in D.C. & I was there to collect
Materials about Ezra Pound at St. Elizabeths.
Upon
arrival in Washington, I went straight
To
the rust-red hospital-fortress named after a
Forgotten
Hungarian Saint on bald overlook of
Anacostia
River as it snakes around the tragic
Capitol.
I saw the greenhouses, the creamery,
Homeless
black shadows crossing Constitution
Avenue
above men with mailboxes strapped to
Carts
of Iron, saw the tiny Civil War cemetery
Where
Union & Confederate Amputee Spirits
Rose
seeking out Lost Limbs, Hands & Feet,
Where
Lincoln visited & Whitman nursed,
Wrote
soldier letters to families, loved ones,
Ran
into John Hinckley––sad life attempted
Assassin
of President Reagan––in morose
Shoes
walking grayly past wind-blasted daffodils,
Tailed
by wrinkly-skinned African American social
Workers––their
hands deep inside camelhair
Coat
pockets. I entered the historic Center
Building,
built like a chess piece rook, found
The
small, humble plaque outside room 2E-3, the
Narrow
thick-walled cell once filled with pears,
Brushes,
Chinese ink––where Pound won the
Bollinger
Prize for the Pisan Cantos, developed
Bad skin & teeth.
13
March 1992
[Published in Grasslands.
© 1994 by Jim
Cohn.]
