three years I worshipped
in the red brick cathedrals
by the ugliest lake on the planet,
but I was cast out of the holy halls,
with mounds of Mellaril, and other sacred potions in pill form  
to see the “outreach caseworker”, though I never knew
what she was reaching for  

my husband had divorced me,
both my sons were in Dallas, dealing cards
at Wall Street casinos,  holding the aces for themselves or a chosen few,
like I really knew anything about what  
filled their days  

my sister took me in,
fed me finger foods, had her maid bathe me  
and invited the ghosts from my past into her house  
they all hugged me and told me how nice my hair looked  
now that I was no longer yanking it out by the fist full  
and choking on it as it went down    

they smelled of sycophantic scents from Macy’s
and Neiman Marcus, and I longed for the odor of my cellmate,
who had to be submerged in a steaming sea once a week, after
they had pumped enough of Morpheus’ brew in her to
mellow a mammoth    

I missed her, and her truculent silence
and the way her arms writhed in her jacket,
like so many snakes squirming to be free,
or perhaps those were the last sin eating serpents
in their death throes, but I would never know
for in 1000 days and 1000 nights, her jacket
was never removed, for the white ones feared what  
black storm waited inside, so they allowed it to hide  
someplace in her fetid carcass  

now when I look across the charcoal stillness
of my room, cluttered with dead distractions,
I imagine her there, on her cot, producing anthems
on mad marching afternoons, or singing lullabies
in evenings last gasps, all without making a sound,  
then my eyes well with tears, for I know
she would miss me too, and worry
what I was doomed to hear and smell
now that her mystic music and stench
were stolen from me