Institutionalized.....For Me, The Last Line Defines The Poem Poem by John Tansey

I am like a too distant cousin
thrice removed from any semblance
of an adopted family.
My identity, fishwrapped in a shattered
mirror, is a dismembered visage I see,
among shards of splintered glass.

Like a disfigured face in a funhouse,
or an unfinished, pockmarked puzzle
in a mental ward,
Where half your day is spent lining up
and the other half lying down.
Take a tiger from the wild,

Bolt it away in a cage.
Declaw its paws, pull its teeth;
And neutered of it's nature,
its instinct to kill for its meat.
It will, instead, feed on schedule.
A whip in the hand will leave it meek;

And an unlocked gate will kep it caged.


John Tansey '04