Carol Pearce-Worthington

Crickets

Just because something is hopeless does not mean I have the right to give up on it.
~ Hungarian Freedom Fighters

It's like having a tooth pulled, he says, of our separating at the end of each visit. After a body cavity search, he walks out on a hill above, and in the waning light, waves as I walk down the gravel road to the highway where I wait for a Trailways bus.

His clothes, his work have been taken. That is not enough. Every word he speaks is treated as a lie, every act vile and criminal. They keep records of his every move. They search the cot where he sleeps and take his underwear, soap, money, letters, books, bananas, cookies. They take his comb and mirror. About matters that affect his freedom he is told "facts" that vary from person to person until he feels he is going crazy. Without warning they move him from a cell or cube or to another facility in another state. They shut off the phones suddenly so that he cannot call home. Without money, without the freedom to sleep where he likes or eat what he likes or make a call when he chooses, to stand and be counted four times every day counted but not to matter only as a number...it is not enough.

Like me, he has staggered, panicked, shouted at God, despaired.

Let him come home to me, I will take him in.

Forget him.

I am the one who remembers.

Easter comes again.

Let me carry my husband.

two crickets call
in the dark
a door unlocks