Prison

by Olivia Cobb

On the Wall of Keith Lamar’s prison cell 

there hangs a picture of Miles Davis  

next to a radio speaker. 

Perhaps the famous one, 

his cheeks two water balloons 

on each side of a mouthpiece, 

brass and expanded skin. 

 

Mr. Davis is that the correct photo 

or am I mistaken? A blur of jazz  

and flesh and famous music men.  

I know each portrait is one world apart from another,  

but that may be the only thing I know. 

 

Mr. Davis did anyone tell you  

your picture sits in a cell on death row?  

Next to drawings by nieces and nephews, 

a bookshelf too, I’ve heard. 

 

You’re a reminder, a picture to suggest silence, 

a taste of quiet for Mr. Lamar,  

a murderer the papers say, 

a victim of circumstance, says he.  

Who are we to judge, Mr. Davis?  

Who are we to ask? 

Our hands adding a dollar of indignity  

to each drop of his blood. We cannot see him, 

cannot hear all the things our indecision will do. 

 

Who is Mr. Lamar—Keith,  

as the loose blue-shorted rap t-shirted white guy calls him,  

as he stands in front of the classroom  

speaking into a phone receiver 

with Mr. Lamar’s, with Keith’s,  

as he calls him, voice flowing out like a riff  

that goes on for a while or I suppose forever  

in his solitary cell. 

 

Mr. Davis did you hold your breath,  

slackening the balloons of your face,  

which I may be remembering incorrectly, 

when the blue-shorted white guy began his question— 

Hey man, hey Keith, yeah so, my name’s Kyle 

I’m a fifth-year student here— 

because I held mine, inside our little classroom conference call.  

 

Or did you know the jazz, 

the improv coming as I swept it away  

with my rolling eyes. Did you see it?  

When I turned my back to the magic 

assumed nothing good could come from  

the inked tentacles of the octopus tattoo,  

pasted onto his pale white skin?  

Nothing good from the rules he broke,  

the common casualness of his question. No “sir,” No shame for all the things which could not be

undone. Or did you know? Is that how the music gets good? 

 

The story, as Kyle names it— 

more a loose cannon of connections,  

but taut and a much better shot than  

the strict and straight question I presented 

into the little loudspeaker box— 

well, his words meant more to Mr. Lamar than 

mine did. I’m sure of it. 

 

Kyle, seems to ask me, with his 

big offensive sports muscled arms, 

is respect just another way to say far apart?  

And our seats seem that much further away. 

 

Mr. Davis, were you quiet  

as Mr. Lamar of Cell Block L 

told that boy in blue shorts: take your life 

seriously. Time is a thing that happens 

subtly. 

 

Or were you another 

image running through his head: 

the man screaming from the shower 

banging on the walls to get out, the mentor 

smearing his own shit down his face, 

another thing running in the background 

like an audio of Native Son? 

Just a photo on the wall, hanging next to the speaker, 

reminding Mr. Lamar that 

humans stay quiet at night.