Criminal Family.

Criminal Family

   It's summer outside, but in here
   you need a sweater. I always
   forget that when we're rushing
   to get in before the book closes,
   we all must put down our names,
   street addresses, and the inmate
   we're visiting. Sometimes
   I screw it up, put his name as visitor,
   put myself as inmate, put my Pittsburgh
   address, not my Jersey, and I don't know
   if the guards even notice. They know us
   soon as we come through the metal detectors:
   visit for Pollard and a head nod.
   We do not know just how much we'll miss
   this next year, when we'll be new again.
   We sit with the other criminals' families:
   if you drop the possessive, we become
   what we fear we've always been.

Charise A. Pollard is a Cave Canem Fellow ('97-'99) and Assistant Professor of English at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in 5AM, Cave Canem Anthologies (nos. 2-5), and The Drumming Between Us: Black Love and Erotic Poetry.