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The classroom glares like a radiation chamber Rectangular funnels of light ricocheting off walls of concrete and steel Between more concrete and steel The stratosphere of San Francisco County Jail I stand in front of the chalkboard Littered with broken psalms, gang emblems I’m there to teach writing, to turn the classroom into a lighthouse Show how a pencil can be used as a laser beam To illuminate the scars of those thrashing about in the waters Incarceration is being caught in shark’s teeth Three rows pointing inward One falls out, a lawyer fucks up No time off for time served, no possibility of parole Another tooth pulling each one of the men closer to the throat Closer to being swallowed up Our society’s disappeared I tell my students to think of their confinement As a writing retreat, all expenses paid While I go to jail armed with three dots and a jot To dig into where I am not We say light is life and dark is death But when a seed rises above the ground It starts to die, when a baby leaves the womb It starts to die, when the leaves of a tree Get too much light, they wrinkle and fall What if the shadow was really the light And the light the shadow? My students are hidden in the shadows because … Tall, black, and short on green, wrote the one with the moniker Hallmark Because … Moms didn’t love me, wrote Shanice Because … My stepfather said choose me or him and she chose him, wrote Janice I’ve been homeless since I was twelve When I refused to do the laundry she burned my books, wrote Peter That way I learned the importance of education My babysitter made me stick my pee-pee in my sister, wrote Tom Because Because Because How many crimes are committed In the name of I exist, I matter? How many crimes In the name of I don’t matter And you’re going to pay? Let us set up a memorial DEDICATED TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN LIVING INSIDE Let’s announce in the obituaries The names of those Who serve on the battlefield Of society’s wastelands The sores and wounds of outrageous fortune Living in a sea amongst us Seen and not seen Sewn and not sewn Inside the seams of prison walls |
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