A saturated, dense mist encased us that night
Encased everything, really
So much so that even the big house,
Stately,
Imposing,
Disappeared all sixty thousand square feet into the muted impressionist curtain that descended upon us
We had too little instruction before venturing out
Underground in damp wasted tunnels
Overground through barbed wire portals and cracked tiles
Vibrating with a ponderous, fearful sort of energy,
Giggling sometimes to cut the silence and pretend it was day
A letter in the half-light cast by battered cell phones,
Michael pouring his heart out in careful block letters
The daily drudgery of his tasks behind the big house, an essential certification,
The pain of wondering whether different choices would have distilled him or stilled the consequences
A door barked shut, sending tumbling the stop
And we perhaps perceived the acute agony of a three-footed wolf or headless bride,
Languishing in eternity among the tattered congealed paint cans and the graffiti of time and interest
Either way,
We sailed out into the dark, somehow safer,
But still it calls to me
What sat behind me at chapel
And pressed its void against me in cell 27
Someday I’ll return
So we can chat