Saturday, July 12, 2008

Man Faces Jail for Smuggling Iguanas in His Prosthetic Leg

Appeared in the Press-Citizen April 14, 2008

He takes solace in the fact that in
the big house you don't ask what your cellmate did,
how it was planned, or what made him flip his lid.
So he can wait to volunteer his sin
(as do we all) until the occasion merits,
hiding the trip to Fiji in his past,
the beaches and sun, the fish that school as fast,
pacific and colorful as the island's parrots.
He will tell them of the lizards, but only
when the prison walls are cold and pressing
and the very act of his confessing
takes them someplace warmer and less lonely,
where the sun's so bright, the water and sky so blue
you can't but try to make it a part of you.

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