The Ones Who Go To Jail

The ones who go to jail
are the ones
who remember and describe each city
not by its sights, its restaurants, its rivers—
but by its capacity
and mechanisms
for justice.
They remembering the gentleness or anger of police
—whose claims to be
“only doing a job”
go just as far as their willingness
to commit, or diffuse, violence;
to cause, or relieve, pain;
and not one inch further.
They remember the cell
or the gymnasium, hastily furnished with cots
to accommodate
dozens of women and men,
dozens of wheelchairs,
and physical needs
which are mundane to us,
but unheard-of
to the frightened guard assigned to meet them:
—cumedin, laoricil, lasix;
battery chargers, ventilator masks,
egg-crate mattresses;
emptying a leg-bag full of urine,
helping heavy, stuff bodies onto low cots—
and as the ones who go to jail
insist on their right
to assistance in the bathroom;
as they demand to fed,
bite by bite;
they know they echo the call of our people.
Their hearts and their actions
harmonize the call:
Where once there was shame,
let us cultivate pride!
Where we have needs,
let us be dependent no more!
Where we ask for assistance
let it be a right!
Where institutions have monopolized
the lives of our people,
now let their doors close,
let their owners be bankrupt!
The ones who go to jail
both choose
and do not choose
their confinement.

They may wear each arrest
gaudily, like a feather, like the bumper stickers
on their wheelchairs;
trade stories; add up days served.
They may anticipate the next arrest
with enthusiasm and bravado.
They may, like Eileen, who calls herself Spitfire,
present an open-armed invitation
to be the first one taken.
They may watch, level-eyed, the police,
until they know their warnings
are finally serious—
and remain, nevertheless, at their chosen post,
locking their brakes,
blocking their doors.

Yet the ones who go to jail
would not choose this—
not if they could learn to forget
the ones who have no choice,
the ones confined
in a different kind of prison.
The ones who go to jail
cannot forget.
They think of the sisters and brothers,
think of the old and the young,
think of our own pasts, of our own impounded futures.
The ones who go to jail
think about the ones
who go to nursing homes—
and choose gladly.