Prismed Prisons. A poem about a wife visiting her husband in prison.

PRISMED PRISONS

She walks down cold, silent paths
Down corridors of steel
Through shackled prison walls
Houses husband to reveal.

Steps soft pace drear distance
Between spouse and spouse
Visiting today from separate lives
Each in a divided house.

His gnarled fingers worn by tests of time
Clasped in tough confusion
Cradles jaws tensed, stern
Views hard bred in seclusion.

“Be not bitter,” she tells her husband
In depression do not dwell
Remember us, your family
Live out your self-made hell.

Your children, poor and lonely
Miss close, warm family ties
Become prisoners real in walls
Unseen to agonize.

Think not that wide walls of freedom
Stand close to imprisoned few
Beyond gray bars, inside steel walls
Outside is a prison too.

– imelda dickinson

This poem is about a woman I saw, who was walking to meet her husband in a prison.