Hiding in Purgatory

What are you hiding in purgatory?
Radiant severed heads
of the murdered king and queen,
hidden, stashed away
at the bottom of the lake.
Cold black water like the
cold fear droplets on your arm.
Your shudder the shudder
of Adam's first mouthful of apple.

What are you hiding in purgatory?
The white larval corpses
of your parents;
A hard anonymity of bone
superimposed on familiar features.
Once-reflecting eyes
now dark puddles of shadow,
blind in the backyard shed
with the lawn mower and rakes,
the ground littered with
half-gnawed seed-pods
and withered husks.

What are you hiding in purgatory?
Behind the darkroom door,
a giant hovering insect
waiting patiently for
the turning handle,
it's face a quivering mass
of all-too-human sadness.
Your aerosol poison
like the first angry ape-man's rock,
like Cain's fist
falling down on Abel.

David W. Aronson
November 2002