“Parable of the Groundhog” by Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry, ’10)

An excerpt from “Parable of the Groundhog” by Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry, ’10), published in Kenyon Review:

 

Parable of the Groundhog

At the Cut—a prison where cities get lost to time—
everyone knows the story of the groundhog.
People remember who told them—
the damn rodent that could climb. Or at least did

before the rest of it happened. Tasha told me.
This was after I’d driven thirteen hours,
I-95 from New York to Richmond
to Jessup, visiting prisons. I’d missed

a Greyhound; whisky & bad memories
kept me. Left me renting a car & asking the patron
saint of fools to keep my eyes open.
Bon Air, a juvie prison in Virginia, & the Cut,

a max in Jessup, Maryland, waiting.
I left Bon Air with images of kids flicking
their tassels from right to left, tossing caps
into the air, surrounded by razor wire.

Every state still turns men into numbers.
& I tell Tasha, there’s not a city
in this country where I can feel free.
The things that can be both true & absurd are enough

to befuddle anyone: time
is so fucking inexorable is what I mean.
& sometimes there is nothing—
just days & their ruthless abundance.   […continue reading here]