Musée de L’Inquisition
The Museum of Inquiry would be scarier.
Wax figures hang from the ceiling by unanswered
questions. A dangling Who made the world?
bumps into What was that other hand doing
in Alanis Morrissette’s pocket? A room erected
from all of the questions asked about existence.
I run through the corridor of anxiety and build
another wing. Theories open a tunnel to the ozone.
A sign advises looking down to avoid asking
how far it goes. Kids swim in a knock-knock river
whispering Who’s there? Exhibits for the five Ws.
How gets a stadium, a planetarium, a gallery
of inventions. They’re trying to crowdfund
an addendum to the Hall of Hypotheticals
for the ones that become actualities.
This feels like a bad haunted house. Beheaded
mannequins and bodies fitted with metal girdles.
Witches’ bridles and Iron Maidens. The Spider,
for breast-ripping. A curiously high number
reference women. Fake blood strategically painted.
Each way of dying explained in five languages.
I mouth the French word for pear and touch
my hips. In what part of the museum do I find
why they don’t just say what they mean?
Wax figures hang from the ceiling by unanswered
questions. A dangling Who made the world?
bumps into What was that other hand doing
in Alanis Morrissette’s pocket? A room erected
from all of the questions asked about existence.
I run through the corridor of anxiety and build
another wing. Theories open a tunnel to the ozone.
A sign advises looking down to avoid asking
how far it goes. Kids swim in a knock-knock river
whispering Who’s there? Exhibits for the five Ws.
How gets a stadium, a planetarium, a gallery
of inventions. They’re trying to crowdfund
an addendum to the Hall of Hypotheticals
for the ones that become actualities.
This feels like a bad haunted house. Beheaded
mannequins and bodies fitted with metal girdles.
Witches’ bridles and Iron Maidens. The Spider,
for breast-ripping. A curiously high number
reference women. Fake blood strategically painted.
Each way of dying explained in five languages.
I mouth the French word for pear and touch
my hips. In what part of the museum do I find
why they don’t just say what they mean?
Shannon Austin earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work
has appeared in Colorado Review, Interim, Profane, American Chordata, and elsewhere. She
currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
This piece was inspired by a trip to the Musée de L’Inquisition (Museum of the Inquisition) in
Carcassonne while I was studying abroad in France. I was interested not only in the double
meaning of the word inquisition but also in how our definitions of torture change when viewed
by a contemporary audience, especially considering how most of the medieval torture devices
were described or named.
has appeared in Colorado Review, Interim, Profane, American Chordata, and elsewhere. She
currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
This piece was inspired by a trip to the Musée de L’Inquisition (Museum of the Inquisition) in
Carcassonne while I was studying abroad in France. I was interested not only in the double
meaning of the word inquisition but also in how our definitions of torture change when viewed
by a contemporary audience, especially considering how most of the medieval torture devices
were described or named.