Carlos

My first day leading the prison writing workshop: Carlos

complimented my choosing the chair nearest the door.

I read a poem by Whitman that once sent me hitchhiking

and Carlos stood up, asked to read a section from his four hundred-page work-in-progress,

a poem that turns on his first finding Neruda's "One Year Walk";

he said it lit up the night like a perfect crime, so I left everything—

I had no choice—walked three thousand miles to the Pacific.

From memory he recited a passage in which his father left the family

a small fortune, all counterfeit: though I doubted the facts, I can still see

that worn briefcase, almost-perfect hundreds stacked neatly in shrink-wrapped packs.

I was young, it took me two weeks to accept that I could teach this lifer

nothing. World of concrete floors and everlasting light:

he was grateful to God who gave him a blazing mind not granted to anyone living or dead,

and wouldn't have changed a word anyway.