Women Writer's Workshop

I had to stop my heart from beating
when the gate swung open
so I could display identification
walk past cyclone wire and 20-foot fences
step around duck shit while
watching ducks flit and sputter on the moat
stretched along the length of fence
I approached every week
This routine
This perimeter

Inside the grip of brick and steel
chokes a teeming mass of women
Cook County Jail
habitat where even heat stifles

I meet women in classrooms
with slits for windows
Posters encourage them to read
while another outlines the 12-step program
The rules are posted everywhere

These women share their stories
crafted and emptied on hoarded paper
with coveted pens

Women who know what it means to trade your body for hunger
Women who was tryin to feed they babies
Women who stabbed their man
because they couldn't stand his fist drumming
on their faces again

Women who just got they G.E.D.
Women who be mothers
Women who be girlfriends and wives
Women who want grilled cheese sandwiches
so they press bread on lights overhead

Women who stumble over words they read
who show each other how to say the words
who fill me up with their laughter
who gossip about who did what on the tier
Women who have a wife on the tier
Women who write letters to the boyfriend whose name is tattooed on their neck
Women that you don't ask why they're here
Women who await court dates so they kick
through doors
like blaxploitation flick heroines and hermanas de la raza

So I stop my heartbeat intentionally
when I see myself in what these women do.
My pulse slows down to death inside
because I want them to follow me
out these doors, these gates
past the ducks
So they can sleep in beds with sheets they chose
have the luxury of spending
too much time and money at the diner
they can walk to when they feel like it

Knowing the wind itself affirms
they are beautiful, intelligent and capable
as polished steel bent to architectural perfection
despite what statistics say
in spite of who touched them in unhealed memory
despite arms that should have held them gently

These women rip beating, veined flesh from their chests
Consider me worthy to look it over and give them advice
when they have taught me to be humble

As a tribute for their sacrifice
As a shield that dams my tears
I stop my heart from beating
for a moment.

- Tara Betts, copyright April 25, 2000