My poem, “Heel,” is in the current issue of Lips Magazine 2025, Issue 61/62. This is a true story that occurred when I was teaching writing classes at men’s medium/maximum security prison in Illinois. Generally the experience was positive – except for this one heartbreaking incident that has stuck with me for 30 years.
We met in the prison library
that autumn into winter I taught
the medium security men.
In December, the librarian
who had worked there
for twenty-five years
and called the thieves and murderers
her boys, brought a small
Christmas tree from home.
Before we started our writing session
the twelve men stood around
the tiny green fir with its tinsel
and most of them wept.
Then the assistant warden stormed
through the door, threw down
the little symbol and ground it
under his soles.
We never celebrate here.
They froze, became wooden.
The librarian swept up the needles
and glitter, her broom straw
making a sound between a hiss
and hush. No one heard a word
of the lesson, season teetering
forever between boot heel
and her kindness.