Stained Glass Prison

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Stained Glass Prison

               As long as we’re together

                With the moonlight shining—

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                                                Meema (Ally)

                                                5 East South, Suffolk County Correctional Center

The girls have all gone out to yard—

to walk endless circles

cover a blacktop beach—t-shirts

rolled up, ripped shorts hiked up

become bikinis.

It’s the ordinary things

will break your heart. Coughing,

menstruating, struggling for soap

utensils, shampoo, shoes

for the shower.  

Trade backrubs for coffee

Cosmetics—all these girl things

still so important—a bit of lotion

chapstick, hair ties ripped from

standard issue socks.

Smells of coconut linger.  Male guard

watches them shower  from his booth.

Scrub whites in the sink, hoard bleach

and plastic bags—tampon strings clean up

eyebrows—are made into rings

Barbecue sauce made of syrup

ketchup and mustard packets

a stolen onion

a hoarded tomato

Woven mats of old news cover

toilet seats, peanut butter packets

warmed between our hands.

Girl on suicide watch walks by in her green

velcro dress and her 24 hour guard.

 

At night you can hear them singing,

Screaming, banging their heads against

cement walls, withdrawing from heroin

crack, prescription drugs

and heterosexuality

crying, masturbating, praying.

Sargent makes his rounds

moonlight shines through

an iron window grate

divine light shape of chain mail

and cathedrals

hits the floor near beds

chained to prison bars

on names scratched everywhere

even in the soap.

Night fades

and its morning

slowly familiar birdsong begins—

a cacaphony of a single bird

strong enough to nest

on this roof—sun rises

presents itself to everyone

everwhere equally

on prisons of our own making.