Joanna Gilman Hyde

Eliza’s Room 9:32pm

I slept in a nunnery the night before

I took My Brother Howard out

of Mt. Sinai Hospital

where He thought The World had ended

and a nurse told Me

He was not ready to leave —

I got Him on a bus

to the Toronto airport

where He thought the man behind us

was Our Second Cousin Billy —

Howard paced around while We waited

to board the plane —

He demanded to speak to The Captain —

He thought the plane would crash —

He had crashed

My dear terrified Brother

and My Mother and I

tried to take care of Him

with an Orthomolecular Diet

I tried to persuade Him

that His Hallucination

in Saudi Arabia

of His Step-brother shooting Him

in the stomach

with a “laser gun”

was nothing more than a dream —

He was fated to die

twenty-five years later

at the hands of jail guards

from The Burnside Correctional Centre

in Nova Scotia

having been “tasered” five times

by Halifax Regional Police

within the last thirty-six hours

of His Life