Arrival
by Judee Norton
(1990, Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville Goodyear, Arizona)

bright shiny bracelets
jangling on my arm
wide leather belt
snug about my waist
chains dangling seductively
between my legs.

I am captured
but not subdued
THEY
think they have me
but
my mind
wheels and soars and spins and shouts
no prisoner
I am free
to look to see
all that I ever have been
all that I ever may be

I hold the small and sacred part of me close
like a royal flush
my poker face
must not betray
THEY
cannot touch it
not even in their dreams
I
am light and air and fire
I
slip through their clutching fingers
like the night
even as they grasp my puny wrist
of simple bone
and blood
and flesh
body here
spirit there
I
am still
free.