& Sometime later I am onward an airplane Thinking about prison narratives.& Sometime later I am onward an airplane Thinking about prison narratives, How self-same attached one can become To prison narratives, Since, in all I've read, the release Is assured from the beginning Or at least through page 36, There is the eventuality of release And the poignancy and well adapted humor Of the prisoners, incarcerated unjustly . . They are freer than we are, dear, Staring at the piney copses in Alabama, Planning the coming and the old age We know will result with it. I wanted to be a r lake And for a while I was a r lake and tribe told Stories, even myths sometimes Over picnics according to me. And then poof, I was listening to the radio, I was the radio, in 2003 & the announcer spoke politely. And it had proceed to pass That in 40 years, segregation Was virtually the same in the Northeast And the west, however not in the South Anymore, as in 1963 & Selma & Birmingham and all the set apart lands Of the dark and piney timbers clustered near red lakes . . Fog came into the prison then. Fog as they say, a thick carpet of it, Though nothing like that, just fog A host chamber, a spate Of time beneath pressure of air & Water and voices all speaking In common twanging, incomprehensible language . . Oh Sophia cried. Oh Sophia spread her hair Across the dark skyline And cried. "Though I am gone" she said Through her gelatin tears, "though I am irremediably gone (for now)" She said between the walls of her glycerin tears, "The world will continue its craggy story And I reliance you will hear it From time to time." The snow winked happily in the snow mound And "the mound" in Tuscaloosa Sinks unexpectedly away from monument, Black warrior shedding his name. The prison door, too, has avoided monument I touched it further was not allowed to enter & as securely as Martin left the urinal And narrow bed, his articulate utterance in hand, Left for his eventual assassination, We left the museum And walked abroad and through the narrow bars Into the possibilities of the nearest page, Or more nearly, another day. Copyright World numbers Incorporated May/Jun 2004 |
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