Detachment

This poem takes place in the crowded hallways of Lexington High School’s main building, which are lined with display cases set into the wall and enclosed by a sheet of clear plastic. Some of these cases are lit and contain student artwork, while other are dark and empty and display only the reflections of the students passing by.

I, perched in the pupil of a giant’s eye,

Imprisoned in a darkened, empty display case set in a thick concrete wall,

Peering hungrily I perceive all, omniscient but ignored,

Watching the flow of the school’s exhausted hemoglobin,

Who tread forward monotonously and full of dread

Along the thin, clogged, tiled capillaries,

Which end at a distant white vanishing point where the parallel walls of the hallway

finally collide,

Backpacks propelled by ringing heartbeats bear soldiers dying in the saddle.

These casualties of an internal, individual war glance briefly at, never into, my hollow,

And therefore find only a dim shadow of themselves in the water’s surface

Observe the ripples their light can raise on an ocean.

Yet, suddenly, the treacherous ice shatters and

Trapped as they find themselves on the other side of the bars

The fish struggle helplessly, hopelessly in my net.

My eyes are transposed on another’s frozen face

A remnant of flashing recognition

Connection

A burning moment of eyes meeting in a keyhole.