Parole Denied
The victim spoke unforgiving words.
Now members of the Board won’t hear your pleas
or see redemption when the noise of loss re-grieves.
They tell you no, condemning you again
for actions seven years ago in drugged numb
of absent self-control. You should be home,
smoking a thin cigarette, telling your friends
your heart has filled with love.
Now you squeeze hurt into a stone.
Pity the head that rests on it—jagged, hard.
*
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.