Stray fragments of suburbia
meander through the open window
as I sit waiting in the car:
clinking dishes, canned laughter,
the smell of some luckless bovine
dismembered and cooking with onions.
By some subconscious alchemy
this admixture of the mundane
becomes a gleaming nostalgia
which altogether disregards
the privileged reading of my past
and reconstrues imprisonment
as a kind of liberation.
Whats wrong? my daughter asks,
getting into the car at last.
Oh Nothing. Just Edmond Dantés
recalling his beatific tenure
in that cell at the Chateau dIf.
She rolls her eyes and groans
as I attempt to merge with traffic.
