Every Successful Escape Artist Has an Assistant to Thank
News last night: another convict
broke free somewhere headed somewhere
with help from a C.O., it appears,
no doubt in love. Familiar story:
a lonely woman needs intense
focused admiration, finds it
in a man condemned to a life
of scheming scenes involving
charm & keys, because a man
needs freedom more than anything,
more than love, & sex for a lifer
isn’t always ugly, isn’t always
what movies show.
He’ll want to be free of her
soon, & she will find herself
lonelier than before. Or maybe
this is a tale of redemption,
the pair sharing happy, innocent lives
for years. After they steal a car.
Or a yacht. Whatever.
I’m rooting for them. I want them to win,
sports heroes who beat the odds.
I want them to find their paradise &
a kind of peace that doesn’t come with bullets.
broke free somewhere headed somewhere
with help from a C.O., it appears,
no doubt in love. Familiar story:
a lonely woman needs intense
focused admiration, finds it
in a man condemned to a life
of scheming scenes involving
charm & keys, because a man
needs freedom more than anything,
more than love, & sex for a lifer
isn’t always ugly, isn’t always
what movies show.
He’ll want to be free of her
soon, & she will find herself
lonelier than before. Or maybe
this is a tale of redemption,
the pair sharing happy, innocent lives
for years. After they steal a car.
Or a yacht. Whatever.
I’m rooting for them. I want them to win,
sports heroes who beat the odds.
I want them to find their paradise &
a kind of peace that doesn’t come with bullets.
|
Ace BoggessAce Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.
Twitter // @AceBoggess |