Tanuki

 

 

They gave me the "tour", still in handcuffs, first, up the infamous elevator where many a  trouble maker paid their due, without witnesses,  then through the gauntlet between pens and holding cells, unscathed but still blinded. Cries of the detainees bemoaning the full moon rose aloft the warm, Saturday night.

In one cell a stunning young woman stood alone, defiant behind shatterproof glass  Rake thin, proud of her screams captivating as any wild animal, her intensity justified with a declaratory smile mocking the injuries to my eyes as they met her gaze. It was as though she demanded I be handed over to her, that liquid line from cheek to jaw taught, flexing, and clenching.

And then at once, the trance broken - I found myself released into the rabble with no visible organization to it as if  that must disturb the incarcerated waiting processing there.   

 

I offered my own ministrations for calm, inured of the nature of anger and its frustration, only to be rejected and restated again and again, without offense or slight, a blind monk among Priests and Kings in the City of Thieves

... tanuki *
for a few cups of sake
recites the sutras
recidivists crowd the shrine
offering prayers all night long

* tanuki; mischief, magic, and change