Last night, in the tiny prison library
we read “Kindness” for the second
or third time in as many years—the lifers knew it

like a rose that was smuggled into the room.
But it was the line “you must lose things”                
that stopped us.  And then Gabe said

“Like us—once we lose everything, once we know sorrow
we will change, we will be different, right?”
A long pause.  “It’s hard to stay out,” I intimated.

One hopes—like a moth
pinned to the flickering bulb—that you’ll be
able to live without the tumult of mind

that broke to let you in this dorm of aggravation.
            Just then the guard drags our eyes away—
                                    “I was only watching.  Don’t mind me—”

as if reading a poem about kindness was an act
            of civil disobedience.  And maybe it is, I think.                    
            Maybe it is code for dressing without permission

or feeling the first tinge of sky this March morning
            when the percussive thrum of corrections
                                    goes to rest and they return to what

was before poetry—before identity without the blue collar
            of words that shimmy up their spines
                                    to tell their lives.