Notes from Exile: Grandchildren
Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.
Every morning, before work or count, I sat at my bunk and wrote what I called ‘log/verse.’ I didn't know iambic pentameter from a weather vane. Words spilled out in primitive forms. These aren’t polished narratives. They’re hybrid scribblings of prose poems and stream-of-consciousness outpourings, designed to overcome the inherent ineffability of the penal experience, convey some visceral semblance of the trauma, and more effectively communicate an inmate's day-to-day reality and true center of gravity. This series shares them as I first wrote them. Usually first thing in the morning before reporting for work in the kitchen at 5:15 am.
In the wake of this week’s essay on legacy, I chose this piece because it captures the quiet heartbreak of knowing that even the love of a grandchild can’t undo the shadow we fear we’ve passed on.
GRANDCHILDREN
Do you know I
Love you?
I'd say to my
Granddaughter.
A knowing shy smile
on that beautiful
face.
"Of course I do"
she'd say.
Is there anything purer
then the innocence
of a seven-year
old.
And how am I to come
to terms with
that.
The reckoning of my
scandal
And the perfection
of that
Smile.
You can read more of my log verse, published in Minutes Before Six, a literary journal that publishes writing by formerly incarcerated writers.