Poppy

“I miss you Poppy; I wish we could visit you Like we did when I was five!” And at ten, her words are just enough To bring sunlight to this place- Tears threatening my face While I labor to be strong, Asking questions and trying To squeeze five years Into one brief call, Fifteen minutes, No more- sometimes less. “You have sixty seconds remaining…” “Oh my God Poppy, I cant believe We only have sixty seconds left-I hate her!” And then comes “We love you dad”, And “Maybe we’ll see you soon”, The sound of her mother’s voice A reminder of seventeen years ago When her brother and sisters asked: Why daddy, why? And still they stand there, Little ragged stumps on a daybreak sky.

… Author’s Note: In prison, the telephone is as synonymous with danger and emotion as it is with hope and connection. I have seen men nearly killed over it, whether by an angry fellow inmate, or by their own hand. And while it was most certainly a conduit of hope and connection to family and friends, the accompanying stress would often tend to dilute the experience. If it wasn’t coming from an angry, impatient inmate staring at you and constantly asking when you would be done, it was coming from the annoying , computer-generated voice of the most hated woman on state: “You have sixty seconds remaining” Imagine this when your daughter is crying and really needs to talk because her world is imploding… This poem was born a few days after a telephone conversation with my first granddaughter, Crista. She is the one who decided I would be called Poppy. She is now seventeen years old, nearly the age of her mother when I went to prison. I am so grateful that the circle of life continues…