Sleep   When I think of it (maybe not, but maybe soon), I see you on that table, shaking, bloody, broken, back there in Ponce, the pound where the man with the net has taken you, I see the man poised with the needle, but something about you has made him pause, he mutters, This one I will not kill — he’s killed enough today. I hear his low voice summoning the pale gringa who will save you. Oh no, she protests in broken Spanish, I don't know, how you say, I no have the, what, the tool, the saw. I hear the man assure her, Hija, today you will learn, for you I will help him to sleep. The noise rises, subsides . . .                               Where is your chariot turning now, my friend? Good boy, Trooper, good boy.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont July 2017