Women's Prison Every Week

Lockers, metal detectors, steel doors, C.O. to C.O., different forms, desks—mouth open, turn—so slow I use the time to practice patience, grace, tenderness for glassed-in guards. The rules recited as if they were the same rules every week: I can wear earrings. I cannot wear earrings. I can wear my hair up. I cannot wear my hair up. I dressed by rote: cords in blue or brown, grey turtleneck, black clogs. The prisoners, all in grey sweatshirts, blue jeans, joked I looked like them, fit in. I didn't think about it, until I dreamed of being shuffled in and locked in there, hustled through the heavy doors. In the dream the guards just shook their heads, smirked when I spelled out my name, shook the freezing bars. Instead of nightly escorts out, I'd stay in there forever. Who would know? So I went to Goodwill, spent ten bucks on pink angora, walked back down those halls a movie star. When I stood at the front of the class there rose a sharp collective sigh. The one who said she never heard of pandering until the arraignment said OK,I'm going to tell her. Then she told me: freedom is wasted on women like me. They hate the dark cotton, jeans they have to wear, each one a shadow of the other their whole sentence.You could wear red! she accused. Their favorite dresses, silk slips, wool socks all long gone, bagged up for sisters, moms—maybe Goodwill, maybe I flicked past them looking for this cotton candy pink angora cardigan, pearl buttons. They can't stop staring, so I take it off and pass it around, let each woman hold it in her arms, appraise the wool between her fingers, a familiar gesture, second nature, from another world.