Taking the Wrong Picture

Not that I wasn’t told ahead of time. Or hadn’t agreed to the grounds rules, the spoken,

written admonitions. Couldn’t guess there are cameras, like nests, in the nearby trees. Trained men to report

any wrong doing, innocent shutter-clicking me. Who forgets no one is supposed to be taking pictures on these barred

grounds. Memory being all I might need. To remember what I’m seeing— the walls, the bars,

the towers and men. Inside, lines and lines of them, walking one hour to the next, not allowed to say

anything while they’re walking. It’s the rule for what they did. This line isn’t an excuse, an explanation for the real

deeds that brought them in. These millions of locked up writers and readers. A few of them who signed up for this poetry writing

class, sitting in a half-circle with me. I have to remember without any pictures. Their numbers and their names.