Tonight's Poet Corner: Dead Man Walking

Dead Man Walking
by Belinda Roddie

Sitting in my personal electric chair,
I wait for the sponge to soak up all
the sins that inflame my poor brain.
The executioner is beautiful. She keeps
her curls under a gray cap and won't
look me in the eye.

I can't remember the trial or the verdict.
I only know the beginning and the end.

I know that Tesla's hand will be placed
atop my head, a high voltage crown
sending me up to Mount Olympus,
where I will be made the new god

of thunder, and Zeus shall remain
imprisoned in my tiny barred cell.
The center of my nervous breakdown, An
homage to my fractured humanity.