testimony (from the trial)
exhibit 5
this need for proof the narrative that thrift of truth
in telling that self the one stained with hope
the one in your mind’s mind who survives arrives
in the day to day of your facing each waking
whose escape is lived in parallel
universes
where happiness prevails in the seemingly
seamless
editing trick of the brain’s witness
protection program
so you can always pick yourself out in
the mirror’s line-up
remember that mother the one who was
taken into hiding
spiders drawing the curtains staring into the TV set that shed herself
stepped out of her own story and may be
gone for some time
other people called in to pick up the
pieces keep her clean
back in the cocoon the warmth the
negation of the womb
with all its promises its never-ending
futures all to end so unsuddenly so soon
such innocence again the ghost slowly suffocated by the machine
