ON PAROLE

BY RAPHAEL SCHMIEDER-GROPEN
STUDENT AT MCGILL FACULTY OF LAW

Parole papers stamped

with pomegranate ink, shades

pass into the world above

and know it is not their own

but its unfamiliar child,

unmet son.

Everything here is new and bright.

Steel temples to washed-up gods

stab at Olympus, square-columned;

sunlight burns.

Ixion blinks wheels

of fire from ashy eyelids. Salmoneus

thinks those gleaming blurs must be

horseless chariots or thunderbolts.

Sisyphus’ hands fly out on instinct,

brace against a phantom boulder.

He paces and sweats like a smoker

quitting cold turkey and looks for

something to do with his hands.