Poetry
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You were forty-five and I was fourteen
when you gave me the skirt.
"It's from Paris!" you said
as if that would impress me
who at best had mixed feelings
about skirts.
But I was drawn by that summer cotton
with splashes of black and white--like paint
dabbed by an eager artist.
I borrowed your skirt
and it moved like waves
as I danced at a ninth grade party.
Wearing it date after date
including my first dinner with acollege man.
I never was much for buying new clothes,
once I liked something it stayed with me for years.
I remember the day I tried
ironing your skirt,
so wide it seemed to go on and on
like a western sky.
Then I smelled the burning
and, crushed, saw that I had left a red-brown scorch
on that painting.
But you, Mother, you understood
because ironing was not your thing either.
And over the years your skirt became my skirt
until I left it and other parts of home with you.
Now you are eighty and I almost fifty.
We sit across from each other
in the prison visiting room.
Your soft gray-thin hair twirls into style.
I follow the lines on your face, paths lit by your eyes
until my gaze comes to rest
on the black and white,
on the years
that our skirt has endured.
You might not be at the other end
of eight cells,
one garlic-coated cooking area
vibrating with the clatter of popcorn on
aluminum pot covers
two guards peering through blurry plexiglas,
the TV room echoing with
Jeopardy sing-song music and competing yells for
answers --
all lying between
my solitude and the telephone.
Or
you might answer
with a flat "hello,"
and I will hear your fingers
poking at plastic computer buttons,
your concentration focused on
the green and blue invaders and defenders.
My words only background
to your triumphs and defeats.
But I long for your voice.
Even the soudn of your clicking fingers.
I journey past
eight cells submerged
in rap, salsa, heavy metal and soul
careening along the green metal corridor,
the guards perched on their raised platform,
dominoes clacking on plastic tabletops.
Past the line of roaches weaving
to the scent of overflowing garbage pails
voices shouting down the corridors,
legs halted by the line
that cannot be crossed.
Finally I sit on the floor
of the chairless smoky butt-filled room
to call you
who answers with an ever-deepening voice,
who barely soudns like my son.
"Hi, what are you doing?"
"I'm lying down, burning incense, listening to music.
Do you want to hear it?"
With such relief
I barely utter "Yes," pushing my ear into the telephone,
my nose into the air.
Your flutes and organs become a soft carpet I walk along
in the musty sweetness and fruit smells
of orange peels and raspberries.
You begin to describe your new room
One wall the dream catcher a set of hatchets
and white feathers wrapped with beads
of turquoise sky and sunset.
Your bed opposite a full length mirror
Perfect, you say, to view yourself,
a new body, six and half inches in one year.
Then you invite me
into your special boxes,
gifts from your father
made behind bars.
"I keep all my treasures."
I nod breathlessly
My son has taken my voice.
His words fill me in
A naming ceremony.
Slowly his hand lifts
a coffee brown belt
name carved across,
a menu of favorite food
shared on the overnight visit.
Father-love.
___
The QEII ticket stub from
the final ocean trip with Grandma.
"Eat breakfast, pack your clothes, then you can watch TV,"
his grandfather's voice echoes
from a note left by his bed.
He moves to the Christmas calendar
of shared favorite books
Tales of Petet Rabbit to Huck Finn
the story of fourteen years.
A birthday card
A photo
My son and I stand back to back.
His head inches past mine.
Then you dangle one sandstone earring
the other in a box in my cell,
"We'll put them together when you get out."
Your words hang like a glider.
Mother-love.
Then guitar notes rise and fall,
and I say, as always "I love you,"
and you say, as always, "I love you,"
and the phone clicks off.
I chose to include Kathy Boudin's "My Skirt" because it focuses on an item from Boudin's past life that connects her to her mother. She writes of the understanding shared between them, the way the shared skirt represents their relationship, their connection, their oneness.
This example is noteworthy because it is a representation of how the incarcerated make efforts to maintain connections with their lives before prison and those they leave outside when they are incarcerated.
The poem relates to our class because it humanizes the writer. While we know that Kathy Boudin is incarcerated, we are also able to connect with the relatable content of her poem. The fact that the writer is incarcerated has no effect on the relevance of her experience, and we still find ourselves connecting with her as a person.
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Jasmyn equals honey bears times peanut butter
She don't remember me
I shed my tears now in ink
I can't forgive the years
I shudder to think I have barely lived without her
Protective walls disservice society
Preventing me from holding her
Unforgiving walls do not protect my heart from visiting aches
Heartaches revisited are proofs only of love
And don't negate that I live, that I breathe
That I feel for my heart's sake
And filled with pain the heart does not prevent
Thoughts of her
It is with love for her that I ache
And I ache further
Taken captive by her pictures
I am weak where she is concerned
Paper images capture only the shadows of her sweetness
But love does not escape me
I miss her
Ever missing Jasmyn.
I chose to include Kathy Boudin’s “The Call” because it shows, perhaps even more so than her poem “The Skirt,” that the connection between the incarcerated and those they leave on the outside is tenuous. Boudin’s poem illustrates the difficulty she has in “watching” her child grow up over the phone. Her attentiveness to the little changes in his voice, to his activities while they converse, to sharing in his interests shows the sanctity which Boudin assigns to these moments.
“The Call” is noteworthy because it provides an example of one of the few literal connections inmates are granted with the outside world, the telephone. Phones are infamous in the prison system, from the infamous “one phone call” allowed upon arrest, to their use in visiting rooms.
I chose to include Carlos Brown's “Ever Missing Jasmyn” because the content explicitly mentions the physical barriers separating the writer and "Jasmyn." Brown's mention of prison walls describes that they "disservice society" by separating him from Jasmyn. He characterizes the walls as both protective and unforgiving, where the walls fail to protect his heart from the pain of disconnect.
Tbis piece of writing once again mentions a tool prisoners use to remain connected to their loved ones outside of incarceration: photos. While photos may serve as a shadowy reminder, Brown reminds us that they are a weak substitute for the reality of a loved one's presence.