Long after you beat down the powerful hand
and leave the scene, prison’s still there to break.
Brutalized by escape, you travel out to sit
in empty theatres, your stunned breast, hardened neck
                waiting for warmth to venture back.

Gilded above the stage, staring archaic shapes
hang, like those men you learn submission from
whose majesty sits yellow on the night,
young indolent girls, long-handed, one’s vague mouth
                and cruel nose and jaw and throat.

Waiting’s paralysis strikes, king-cobra hooded head’s
infected fangs petrify body and face.
Emblems fade everyway, dissolving even
the bitter infantile boys who call for sleep’s
                winy breasts whose nipples are long grapes.

Seats fill. The curtain’s up where strong lights act,
cut theatre to its theme, the quick fit’s past.
Here’s answer in masses moving; by light elect,
they turn the stage before into the street behind;
                and nothing’s so forgotten as your blind
                female paralysis that takes the mind,
                and nothing’s so forgotten as your dead
                fever, now that it’s past and the swift play’s ahead.