Panopticon
Don’t let me be the last to know. The sister-in-law up north kept saying
“I do not have Alzheimer’s” while the family hired caregivers, her car keys
long since taken away, the mail monitored in case she’s sending out
big checks again to scams that feature hungry children. A friend’s wife
woke up thinking there was a stranger in her bed. I remember the first
in our group, how we all gave advice scraped from magazine articles:
the miracle of boxing for Parkinson’s, the test for sense of smell,
devices to track a wanderer. Each time that I can’t recall a name, see someone
after years apart and wonder why I know the face, fumble the day of the week
or feel a short swish of vertigo as I rise from the couch, I’m triggered: not
trauma, but frank panic. Recluse at heart, introvert turned habitual,
protect me from assisted living or grown children checking, concerned,
on whether I can shovel the snow myself.
I have read of the panopticon: prison designed as rotunda, armed observers
at a central desk that turns unceasingly, guards observing each prisoner
in random moments. Call its exploration “surveillance studies,” ice-cold
assessment of potential independent persons. One English city broadcast
its closed-circuit filming of downtown sidewalks to all residents, “see what’s
happening, check out traffic, keep an eye out for crime.” Reality TV cameras
show sleepers snorting, farting, shamed by the lens, the viewers. “The pleasure
of power,” and of sadism, voyeurism, meshed with exhibitionism, narcissism,
say the reports. One of my grown sons is a tech entrepreneur, always ready
to mine data, scope out the interiors of sports, policing, parenting—he said
“Mom, there is no privacy any longer, don’t struggle, accept it.” I hear
there are warehouses big enough to get lost in, except the endless cameras
and in fact the phone in your pocket will find you. Track you. Locate you.
If I am lost: Let me be lost. I’ll leave my smartphone, drained of power,
on a stone by the entrance to a wilderness.
Beth Kanell
Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont among rivers, rocks, and writers. Her poems seek comfortable seats in small well-lit places, including The Comstock Review, Indianapolis Review, Gyroscope Review, The Post-Grad Journal, Persimmon Tree, Northwind Treasury, RockPaperPoem, and Rise Up Review. Explore her collection Thresholds (Kelsay Books).