1. Open Prison
In England, there is such a thing.
It is for inmates of the lowest risk
who are trusted not to get up and run away.
2. Open Prison
Don’t ask me why
I take up a cell right next to yours.
The bars are wide enough for me to slip through,
but I don’t.
The thing about your open prison
is that I can get in here,
and the other thing
is that you can’t push me out.
You confess and consign your body over,
but here’s another thing:
I believe you’re innocent,
even so.
Sin makes sense of capture,
but the crooked spine will never make
a crooked man of you.
Don’t ask me why I choose your broken body,
your broken lap and open prison walls.
I am grand enough to think your pain is lessened,
but through me it may be you suffer more.
3. Open Prison
I know these are only visiting hours,
and there is something like glass with little holes
between your unmoving world and mine.
I stretch across the bed and talk up my minutes.
When we touch, you claw me like loose dirt,
plunge through me like a tunnel
for fast access out.
If you could get me close enough,
maybe there would be no more penitence
for your straight-backed black penitentiary.
Open prison,
I climb in anytime I want,
I choose to.
I say yes to you.
May 14, 2007
