Today, in honor of our freedom, I'm posting poems from prisoners who aren't, or at one time, were not free.

image from the University of York, UK

-Institutionalized-

As a female prison employee walks pass
I inhale and hold
arrested in my lungs her perfume
which reminds me of
freedom.

–Roland F. Stoecker Jr. 3/27/13 posted on Between the Bars

Pictures of a Daughter, Viewed in Prison

You set the photos down,
spreading time around you panorama-style.
Button-nosed baby, toddler, little girl, bigger girl:
Your eyes roam the chain of living paper dolls,
the side-by-side smiles posed just for you.
Time cannonballs you in the gut.
You think, When the hell did all this happen?
How did I miss so much?
Too late to cry, too late to mourn
the baby smell, the small heft, the music of her giggles.
The middle photos blur, become
the space between your first photo and your latest.
This is the abyss into which time has fallen.
Your reverie broken,
you gather up your painful collection and rise.
The clock reads 2:28.
Time has just stolen another hour.

—Christina Snow,  published in I'll Fly Away edited by Wally Lamb and posted on Oprah's website

Sequoia

Bark a mile thick and tough as anything you’ve seen
No sap in this old tree
The wind and fog know better than to venture near
Lest they be swallowed
I strip the fetid earth of all that is good in it
And cast my shadow on all that come near
I am invincible
Indestructible
Beyond reproach
For no one dares to challenge me
The lion of the forest
They’re smart for that
Because they do not know of what I’m capable
Neither do they know
That it is lonely when
There are no arms large enough to hold you
In their embrace

–Karter Kane Reed, in a letter to me