With clammy hands and weighted feet,
I walked through the bare, cold corridors.
The years he spent en la pinta schooled me
well for the entry traditions.
I was prepared for the stoic man with a gun and baton in hand,
but not the hint of humanity that softened his eyes,
which didn’t quite meet mine.
“Remove your jewelry and empty your pockets,”
he said softly, guiding me through security.
The sound of my heartbeat reverberated off the cold
hospital walls of the inmate ward as we proceeded.
We halted outside the shiny, bulletproof automatic door
at the end of the hall.
I prepared myself, shaking a shiver.
I walked to the bed where he lay,
the kind guard still in back of me.
“You have twenty minutes,” he said.
I stared at the shackles tying his feet and hands to the bed.
The stale, acrid odor of death’s dying skin,
diseased by his early sins,
consumed the small, bare room.
“I’m here,” I said, grabbing his skeletal hand while
singing a song he taught me long ago.
“Te vas por que te quiero que te vayas,”
meaning it in more ways than one.
I wanted him to let go,
to finally remove the shackles
of his life’s burdens that
had made him so hateful.
