I Breathe the Prisoner

For/With [My Name Goes Here]

Illustration: “Untitled” from the story “Portrait of a Man.” (Used with permission of Writer/Photographer Buku Sakar, Paris.)

This requires a bit of esplainin’, in part so I can credit a great (Substack) collaborator, [My Name Goes Here], whom I’ve known — like maybe forever — as “Angiel”. (I couldn’t link her site above, in the sub-headline.) Anyway, [MNGH] graciously allowed me to make some editorial suggestions on one of her poems, “How the Prisoner Smells,” then encouraged me to re-cast it lyrically, which is what you see here (below). (As collaborators, [MNGH] and I invite solid harmonists “out there” — who are more talented than we are at musical/song composition — to set the tune.)

This is what aging, post-Boomer American nerdy intellectuals call “Good Kleen Fun.”

I Breathe the Prisoner

For/With Angiel [My Name Goes Here]

© Topper Sherwood, 2025

For years you were my prisoner,

And, like an old perfume;

I’ve loved the smell of you,

Your traces in this room.

You lay your head against my breast;

To free my blouse and breathe;

I still love that scent of you;

Of pine and open sea.

Others just saw the dandy;

Inhaling, I knew you well;

Wild wolf on salted sand,

How I love that smell!

How good we were together,

In our well-appointed lair;

Still love that smell of you;

Of soiled sheets and wild hair.

Still breathe your fear and longing,

Of ferns and tanin, stone;

Still love the smell of you,

Wild animal, on the run.

Once things were free & easy,

American suburban dream;

Still love those smells alongside yours;

Of coffee, smoke, and cream.

A thing of fern and eel grass,

Soaking in the sun;

Your ship is pushed by wicked winds;

You’re out there, on the run.

As I still love the smell of you;

You’re out there, running free;

I open my blouse in this quiet room

And breathe its prisoner, me.