Four Poems by Kevin Ridgeway

FINE DINING AT CHINO MEN’S PRISON

I push all of my leftover cash
into the change machine at the laundromat
to stock up on quarters for the vending machines
at Chino Men’s Prison tomorrow where
I’ll visit and feed my ailing Dad snack cakes,
ten dollar TV dinners and enough caffeinated
beverages to keep him going strong
throughout the six hours
we’ll have to talk with zero distractions,
buzzed on each other and the past,
present and uncertain future together,
talking about everything and anything
but the illness he’ll succumb to,
enjoying the hours when I go out there
to serve time right alongside him.

*

STANDING IN A LONG LINE
OUTSIDE OF CHINO MEN’S PRISON

Old World War fighter planes
fill the sky above a group
of orange desert mountains
and open brown fields who dot the land.
Before you reach the grounds of the prison,
the electric fences stretch along the street,
a warehouse of men crawling like ants
between different structures in the distance
until we reach the gate: VISITING CENTER
a line of mostly women of different ages
wait for husbands, lovers, sons
and brothers, airing their grievances
amongst themselves for crimes
they didn’t commit other than the crime
of still loving those who did, or children
like me who were born into this life
to become more angry numbers
with lost freedom written in the grit
of clenched teeth, but I grew up soft.
I’m at a loss for words as the ladies
speak and I nod politely, waiting
for the deputies to open the doors,
doing my best to avoid eye contact
from a complete lack of innocence—
my worst impersonation of a saint.

*

INMATE #F-05859

Six feet and one inch tall
and a hundred and twenty pounds:
my frail, incarcerated father
has to get up from his wheelchair
to disrobe in front of officers
before he can come out to visit me–
his hug the grip of a dying lion,
dwindled down but still
a mountain of a man to me,
his love for me only one
of his many felonies in a life
misspent but never in vain
when he sees me standing there,
waiting for him to come out.

*

PLAYING SCRABBLE WITH MY FATHER
DURING A VISIT AT CHINO MEN’S PRISON

I let him get away
with a few misspellings,
but he’s a formidable opponent
from years spent with nothing else
to pass the time but read more
voraciously than I do—
it feels good to impress him
with all of the ten dollar words
I know, and letters on tiles
arranged that aren’t riddled
with too many clues
from our painful past,
in silent bewilderment
of our shared language—
including the profanity
uttered whenever we pull
one too many vowels.

*

Kevin Ridgeway’s books include Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press), Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press) and Death of the Coppertone Girl (Luchador Press). His work has been published in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Slipstream Magazine, Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Trailer Park Quarterly and Talking River Review, among others. He lives and writes in Long Beach, California.