Lancaster Castle ceased to
operate as a prison in 2011
~Holding
it looms above you on the steep path
those two crenellated towers
stone walls coated in centuries of coal soot
a panopticon in the middle
of the Victorian section
and beneath that the old prison
with the oak doors twelve inches thick
that had been hanging faithfully
for nine hundred years
hinges still creaking
with the voices of the dead
the tour guide puts us in a cell
and shuts the heavy door
turns off the lights
no outside world
and you might as well be invisible
already hung or branded
the uneven floor would be
covered in straw replaced
with fresh straw once a week
no beds against the walls
no toilet or bucket
perhaps they were chained
to each other perhaps not
on the walls shackles and a scold’s bridle
branding iron a noose used not that long ago
the guilty were hung outside the prison walls
then burned black so the spirit
could not reenter the skin
and no one could make witch powders
from teeth or bones
and Alice Nutter was one of them
the dungeon they put her in
deep under the castle
there was no evidence
against her just gossip
wealth and her Catholicism
she pled not guilty for what it’s worth
