I suppose it makes sense

I spent yesterday afternoon in an old slaughterhouse
it was pleasant, filled with books, companionship
the contemplative silence and laughter of discovery

it was noted that I am a very verbal book looker
(I didn't mention that I am a very verbal everything,
though I certainly did think it)

perhaps the tense drive home in the first beautiful
challenging snow of this season and up those
treacherous hills introduced the element of fear

no, it was the description I recently gave to friends
of some cells in the Apple Creek institution
(I’ve seen them, was there for combat training)

the ceilings and floors are slanted with slots
at the top and bottom of the enormous bars
enough to shove in food and a hose, no contact

and the book of photographs, Asylum,
that I keep renewing from the library with the
haunting humanity that fills those now-empty rooms

I had a nightmare - one that made me wake up and
walk it off - about that slaughterhouse in action
the stench and the blood covered walls throbbed

pulses of water from the hose swelled the horror
sent it swirling down drains, drowning
the maw that had been wrenched in the earth