poems: R. Dwayne Betts

Metropolis

A woman tattoos Rashid’s name above her breast
& talks about the conspiracy to destroy blacks.
As if this cancer of handcuffs equals people
leaving their homes holding red carnations,
& not Timbs scuffed & leaning from night’s
grinding. A life sentence begins with Rashid’s
name & an old quarrel: crimson against
the concrete. Someone says the people need
to stand up, that the system’s a glass house
falling on only a few heads. All those closed
eyes, imagining Rashid as the Manchurian,
& you almost believe them, you do, except
the cognac in your hand is an old habit,
& the talking, it sounds like an old quarrel. It
sounds like a woman with a dusky voice
pitching notes over a dark brown acoustic.

And if every cuss word was a sin

Mouths would blossom more
thorns & men –shackled to bunk
beds, chow calls and count times,
their tongues touching pain
so rich it crawled inside bruises
and began to beat –still wouldn’t
give a fuck if God was listening.
Everything halved by hurt. & shit
would be so real, prayers would come
as cut cards saved & muthafuckas
stitched inside the soles of prison
brogans, coats padded with magazines
and the edges of ice picks
or flat blades of carved steel. Mercy
would be the nine of hearts turning
the book that leaves your footlocker
full, silence the craving when you
want a woman’s touch but your dick
is in your hand & men would list
the pain all in swears, confusing the meaning,
until each shit, bitch, & muthafucka
was solemn: our heads bowed in abeyance.

R. DWAYNE BETTS is a husband and father of a young son. He is a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow, a Cave Canem Fellow and recipient of a 2010 NAACP Image Award for Literary Debut in recognition of his first book, the memoir A Question of Freedom, which was published by Avery/Penguin in August 2009. A Question of Freedom tells his story of literature, insanity and finding manhood in prison. He is also celebrating the release of his first collection of poetry, Shahid Reads His Own Palm, from Alice James Books in May 2010.