After our ceremonies a few of us
Crossed Puget Sound to MacNeill Island
To the grim fortress where the Brotherhood
Of American Indian prisoners had donated
To help our intertribal spiritual gathering.
I held my breath as the iron doors
Slid and clanked behind us, but
Through an open door down the hall
The pounding of a drum, lusty voices sang— ...more

The poem below distills for me the year 2003, when I was diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer. I was partway through chemotherapy when the inspiration for the poem arose. It took seconds to write.

I had joined a meditation group for patients at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. We were drumming and shaking tambourines and other instruments during one of the sessions. My heart was beating real fast. The boom boom boom was going right through me. With a passion I wanted to beat this cancer. ...more

[The author is on death row in Ohio.]

Fragments of free life
roam distant memory
calling
angels to stop the movie.

Twinkle of daybreak
outs shadowy darkness
bringing
fourteen hundred forty minutes of confusion. ...more

[written from prison]

There are very few things
more pathetic
than watching a man
anticipating a visit
that never happens
the labors of sadness begin
when he doesn’t make first call ...more

Momma, if we talked about such things
I would tell you,
I met a girl
I think I love her
like I think I love you…
or as much as you would let me. ...more

Mama you made beautiful quilts
To wrap us in,
And little shoes for my little feet.
You brought okra from a seed
In our family country garden,
Turning over the earth in the summer,
topless. ...more