
Kevin Blane Vaughn
WebsiteYears: 2005, 2007, 2009
Biography
Poem
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Riverside Correctional Facility
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Visit 1
So fresh & fit from Paris
when I appear behind my grandmother
that my mother’s toothless, bald head issues
a silent yelp
& her fist batters
the thick pane of glass between us.
My grandmother & I crowd the booth.
We have shifted in molded plastic chairs for hours
while the CO’s pull my mother from the Hole
for fighting. At whom
did she launch her
ninety pounds, swollen
jet knuckles & malnourished joints?
I flick my fingers
to catch her darting pupils, conduct
conversation, so that in half an hour
we can scaffold the missing
years. My grandmother cannot
understand that my mother is layers
of flint & crystal, that her: Shirley
what the hell is you doin’ here? cripples
my ministrations, while we are both aware
my mother is a manic confidence woman
after forty-something years
& six failed children
there remains parent in her. My heart rings
my siblings between her hopes & this woman
once pretty – a glacial span of dark skin
& bright gap-toothed smile.
Visit 2
When my mother exits
the Hole, we see
how much worse she looks up close.
The CO bellows
through the intercom:
arms & legs uncrossed!
We three allowed
not to touch
& look only forward.
She grins to the quick of my threat
of arranged psychiatric care:
I’m not crazy, I have a disease –
12 step jargon
for when the Higher Power remits you
to free will. It is obnoxious
she believes, I believe this game.
This is our final half hour
& the CO’s
do not pull us apart when I sob
into her bright orange jump suit
& she says: I need my first-born strong.
She bears
no motherly weight – when I have broken
& carried her children & inherited
her disease, needed someone
who knew its dark & would still love me.