confined
to a space
not their own
abandoned by
family
government
justice
jailed within
and without

prisons
teach wrong
from worse
but the system
was not made for
their strength
only correction

rehabilitation
falls through steel bars
where eyes mirror
lessons beyond walls
and stories of
cell-block sisters
echo from ward to ward

doing time
they find time
to question,
to ask of themselves
of their choices
of expectations

in those walls
they are free
to think
incarceration of the mind
not so easily sentenced
though guilt and fear
imprison many

some escape in here
find power, find solidarity
unfamiliar, unprecedented
filling wounds of loss
with threads of one another
united in penalty
and survival
finding a voice
in silence
in their cells
in one another

Lock Down!...Lights Out!


[inspired by the play: "Mujeres en El encierro" ("Women in Confinement") by Maria Morett]

04/25/2002

Posted on 04/25/2002
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