SPRINGTIME IN THE GULAGS

Last night the prisoners’ dreams were filled
with the dead fathers of former close friends.
Each woke sweating and stuck to their leaking
air mattresses, thanking God they were not in Ohio.
Over breakfast and the deafening whoosh
of six month’s snow melting, the prisoners
discuss with full mouths: he was in tears,
I was not sure what it was I was to do.

The conversation soon turns to plans,
the prisoners pledge to memorize accounts
of eachother’s prison stay using pneumonic
devices, approximate melodies for singing
the accompaniment to each other’s account.
Other things were done as well. Some took

to swallowing fish hooks wrapped with
old bits of boot tongues, each line tied to the knob
of the barrack’s door. After the others barked replies
to the overseer’s role call, the swallowers patiently hope
for the sentry to wrench the door open,
for their stomachs to turn inside out ,
and for a comfortable April spent in the infirmary,
sipping gruel and fluffing their moldy pillows
while almost humming to themselves: he was in tears,
we were not sure what it was we were to do.

Each prisoner now waits with patience
for the finish of their internment, after which,
as was pledged, each prisoner will begin to search
for the person who can sketch their songs
as drawings with actors cast as prisoners,
and prisoners cast as narrators emotively whistling
of springtime pounding the barrack’s doors
with fists gloved in black leather shining
bright under Siberia’s equinorial sun.