<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Prisoners Cinema with Saints Catherine and Lucy</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class="">“Prisoner’s cinema” is the term given to visual hallucinations reported by prisoners confined to dark cells and by others kept in darkness for long periods of time.</i></span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Lit by a million specks of light,</div><div class="">all your dust turns holy.</div><div class="">What’s rotten in you burns </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">and burns. You, a shadow-</div><div class="">you, gone glowing</div><div class="">Catherine wheel, a spoked </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">gloaming. You know lead can lodge</div><div class="">into an animal’s skull, turn</div><div class="">the skull into a lit temple </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">of its wanderings, and this is how</div><div class="">you understand the fabled bowl</div><div class="">a saint carries, its hollow lit</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">by the eyes it cradles and the saint</div><div class="">eyeless and God-filled. You are not</div><div class="">eyeless and God is nowhere</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to witness how you become</div><div class="">the wheel and the body it breaks,</div><div class="">a spectacle of light you cannot fathom</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">until you fathom it—flooded</div><div class="">as you are with shadow, darkness</div><div class="">taut as an animal’s shank</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">until it ripples at your touch. Pools</div><div class="">in the bowl your hands make.</div><div class="">Then breaks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Susannah Nevison</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>