for Harry Lawton

It’s an old house

with modern makeshifts

at the back

strung round

by barb and wire

like a tidy German camp.

The tenants pen their dreams

in the air with echoes,

pieces of found memory.

This one wants his mother,

broom-woman whose swift kick

he knows now to prefer

to the slow fall down

of Valium. That one paces,

paces on the lawn, forging

his escape like a signature,

but free he hurries long strides home

to the Swiss Inn.

There’s no use

trying to hide them—

better to fence them in,

count heads between shifts

of street-dressed nurses.

The tenants mime their keepers

when they’re handed cups

of colored pills.

Then the sane retreat

as evening warms

to the door, to the sensible

shelf and shell of House.

Seeing the nurses leave

is the only way to know

who’s who, until

the tenants prime

the night, broadcasting

their chorus again.