On the Commitment of a Friend to a Mental Institution

You heard the voices wafting
Beyond the mechanical street.

Attending seraphs sighing
You caught their half-notes
In the narrows of the halls at night.

Unscrewing lightbulbs from the sockets,
Blinding the world to heed the light,
You announced in the kitchen

With old prophetic ardor
Against our din of talk and pans
That Jesus was come, or at least nigh.

We searched your drawer for medication,
Counted out uneaten anodynes
And knew you’d fallen from our heights.

We dialed the doctor,
The mental institution down the street
And the cops, in case.

When the knock came upon the door,
You stepped into the open night
Clutching my hand for your progress.

In a blanched, fluorescent lobby
The white-robed clerks look on and code
Forms behind the silent glass.

Huddling on my lap, shivering with fear,
Where only a rubber plant droops to hear,
You try to tell us all again
The singing of the voices.

Then move into the silence of eclipse.

—Mary Freeman