Improv 1, Week 5

The Visitor by Carolyn Forche

In Spanish he whispers there is no time left.
It is the sound of scythes arcing in wheat,
the ache of some field song in Salvador.
The wind along the prison, cautious
as Francisco's hands on the inside, touching
the walls as he walks, it is his wife's breath
slipping into his cell each night while he
imagines his hand to be hers. It is a small country.

There is nothing one man will not do to another.

The inmates use the cleared fields as a sundial,

quickly learning watches were the luxury of men

light enough to mind their roman savage desires

for private places. Their hands wrapped around

iron bars, hard like their first crime. Launching

Yelps and Whoops into the loose shackles of

new inborn mates a cell the size of their first

bedroom with two other siblings. As if home

was never that far away.