Imagine mule deer
grazing in blue mountains
or simmering summered
Sunday papers, perishing on the holocaunst of lawns
Imagine, one more time
the blackened Eucalyptus
boiling on the tongues of summer fences
Pretend this once
that the saucer of your eyes
were a form of memory
that the liquid of your lips
were a liquor, simmering in twilight
garnished in the low hear, burning...
Maybe I don’t need nobody
Maybe I don’t need you
Maybe I’ve got all the joy
Maybe that’s all I need
The love that comes so freely
Comes from our little boy
Baby I don’t need nobody
Baby I don’t need you
Baby I’ve got all the love
Baby it’s all I’ll need
Just to raise a child
A child that I bore
I wish you love, the feeling that comes
from knowing how much I care
The support of knowing you can call
On me if you need me there
I wish you love, the strength that comes from knowing
Not even your deepest sadness can last
Forever your powerful feelings that comes
from believing in our past
I wish you love, the possibility that
lies within the happiness ahead
The realization beyond yourself instead
I wish you love, the love that comes
From surrendering yourself to a higher power
Like the view from the grateful tower
I wish you love
So we stand here Tiny, Scout, and me.
We look at the guy taking our picture.
We try to show a little. But not too much.
Should our emotions or vulnerabilities
happen to steal away from us,
making their way through our defenses.
We’ll just blame it on the stark white lights
glinting off the whites of our eyes.
We try to show the people looking that our dignity is not lost,
that we are not broken,
that the men they knew still exist.
We try to do this without appearing insolent to the guards.
This is not easy.
We don’t give them a chance to take this opportunity from us.
We try our best to send our thoughts through that camera,
onto the film and into the hands of those we hope haven’t forgotten
us.
This is family now, or what passes for it anyway.
As they say, ‘you don’t choose your family’.
I don’t want to be here.
They don’t want to be here.
The pricks keeping us here, don’t want to be here.
It serves a purpose though, money budgeted must be spent.
and for the people in this godforsaken wasteland a job’s a
job.
So the men form surrogate families,
which ultimately serve the same purpose as families on the outside.
We try to keep ourselves alive.
