a ordinary high school, in a quiet neighborhood
-until the comrade citizens divided up the classrooms
with crude brick walls and hasty mortar
and renamed it Security Office 21
the torture cells are spacious,
a single metal bedframe without mattress,
an american ammunition can for a toilet,
shackles forged from rebar.
linoleum tiles in a white and yellow checkerboard,
the walls are scuffed and stained.
this is where they tortured
the doctors, teachers, engineers,
anyone who spoke a foreign language
their wives and children,
anyone suspected of being educated
-like if they wore glasses
thousands upon thousands
now the prison is the tuol sleng genocide museum.
it's still a quiet neighborhood, sizzling under a hot blue sky.
the visitors move quietly from room to room,
except the few who ignore the admonishment
to be respectful, no laughter or loud voices, please.
perhaps the giggles are just nervousness.
the ground floor mass detention cells are filled
with hundreds of photographs mounted on display boards.
men and women, old and young, children;
some with a number tag across their chest.
there's the special clamp the guards used
to keep the prisoners' heads still for the mug shots.
the prison rules are posted on a sign:
The Security of Organization
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions
-don't turn away.
2. Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts
this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don't be fool for you are a chap who
dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions
without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don't tell me either about your immoralities
or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification
you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders.
If there is no order, keep quiet.
When I ask you to do something,
you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom
in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don't follow all the above rules,
you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations
you shall get either ten lashes
or five shocks of electric discharge.
the next site is Cheung Ek, the killing fields,
nine miles out of town.
Cheung Ek had been a farm.
now it's almost a park, green, serene
with a tower in the center
in a modern buddhist temple style.
the tower has seventeen levels of shelves,
skulls on the lower levels,
then the long bones in the middle,
a miscellany of small bones at the top
paths wind among the trees from pit to pit
where the mass graves have been exhumed.
where the earth is bare,
scraps of cloth and teeth, sandals
poke through the surface after heavy rains.
back in town, beyond the gauntlet
of new banks and cell phone shops,
the Russian Market waits
with stalls of silks and souvenirs,
kitchen implements and motorcycle parts
snacks and t-shirts, a dim emporium
for those who need or wish to shop
-and have the appetite.
the highest point in the city is Wat Phnom,
the founding temple restored once more,
crowns a man-made wooded hill
where monkeys trying to cadge a snack
chase the visitors on a switch-backed path.
A sleepy elephant waits beside a tree
for tourists to book a "once in a lifetime ride"
or snapshot opportunity.
Inside the temple, is a fragrant darkness,
with muted frescos on the walls and ceiling
illuminated by flame-shaped fluorescent lights
and those tall yellow temple candles.
citizens and travelers sit with heads bowed,
murmuring or silent, feet folded underneath
or to the side, hands pressed palm to palm
breathing slowly in the dim room
atop the hill, the city's shaded heart.
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