As My Prisoner Ages

It’s no longer an exercise in torture. That ended years ago.
The pain of incarceration is far subtler:
days & nights spent sifting through soiled linen, he wanders
the compound like a hapless joke
anticipating applause that will never come.
I’ve learned to ignore
his yearning for Bourbon before noon,
his trembling at the mirror as his beard whitens & his thinning
hair falls.

Coloring his nights,
the replay of Janine’s suicide, her blood soaking through
their newly installed Berber carpet,
her dream of a new home blown away by her own hand & his
Smith & Wesson ‘38 Mag.
As the years have tumbled by what might be has morphed to
what might have been fueled by the image
of the hobbled horse awaiting the lion’s leap.
Horny but fearful of impotence
he surfs the web for porn,
masturbates before he dozes-off, accomplishes
as little as possible.