i also want to challenge police forces
to keep me contained: jails handcuffs
chains ropes straitjackets. magicians knew
spectacle was struggle reframed: the chance
of a man drowned in a milk can, like a kitten,
spilled past the footlights. the papers called him
self-assured, imperious: short sharp bowlegged man,
Rabbi’s son, thrice renamed, a boy trapeze flyer,
cross-country runner, with lockpicks hid in his hand.

Harry says: when faced with straitjackets,
get bigger. expand to the size of the gap
between mamaloshen and Wisconsin; use
your struggle as disguise. remember: i am
stronger than madness. (create the slack.)
i am stronger than death, buried alive.
named and renamed i am stronger than lies.
never let them know your true size.
i am stronger. they never took Ehrich alive.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Maya Chhabra during our annual Kickstarter.]