The Liberation of Madness
                        "When I think of the fun I missed, I try not to be bitter."
                        (from Time and Space by Jane Wagner)

Define it
as the act of stepping
from reality's shit-stained underwear.

I lift guilt's spinning drill bit
out of the wounds of my
still-smoking temples.

It describes my impaled jog
along the fixed squirrel wheel
of petrified fury,

Puts me beyond pain,
through selective perception's
pass-worded doorway.

It comes at a time when I can't,
brings relief
from the absence of power.
 

Copyright 1999,  Jennifer Lagier
 
Jennifer Lagier  teaches at Hartnell College and California State University, Monterey
Bay. She is a member of the National Writers Union, Local 7. "The Liberation of Madness" first appeared in Sojourner.