I do not have a picture of you
except the gray one drifting in my head  
I will feebly tell the world about you
and your three walls
the grated window does allow the morning light  
to shine upon the graffiti prophets’ words
a scratched and scrolled novella
on the ancient cold bricks  
the indelible tales they tell
hang above the pocked porcelain pools  
where the unclean
were scrubbed by the unholy  
who thought them unworthy
of their sacred soil  
some would scream during the rituals
not at the pain of the brush
or the eye sting of the careless lye,
their rabid cries
came from the vacant eyes
of their captors
who did not see them
in their naked splendor,
speak their forgotten names
in the dead morning air, or  
even hear them,
when they cried to their gods for mercy,
to be released from their pestilent past
and to be made blind
to the servant’s silent suffering
only they could see