Lordsburg Jail

1980's

The sheriff of Hidalgo County

agrees to schedule Emily's G.E.C.

in the dayroom of the Lordsburg Jail.

I drive a snowy forty-five miles

in the dawn of a pre-Christmas day

to find her confined to her cell

for passing joints around the jail.

I smile, standing taller,

when I hear that I can't see her.

"Her test will be as valid

in a cell as a dayroom."

When the cell door slams

behind me, the shock

strikes me like a fist

against a midnight window.

A thin Hispanic woman

in her twenties,

Emily looks like someone

who had missed the good things

long before she was given six months

for beating up another woman.

The walls are broken green plaster.

A twenty-five-watt bulb

hangs above a top bunk.

She climbs there

with her test booklet.

Freezing after the first

of six hours,

I wrap myself

in a torn jail blanket.

She fails the science exam.

She must try again

or I cannot leave her,

dooming herself to perdition

in this grim Southwestern jail.

* * * * *

Bonnie Buckley Maldonado, http://www.bonniebuckleymaldonado.com/, was the first poet laureate of Silver City, New Mexico. She was also an educator and continues to be a strong influence in the Southwestern literary scene. "Lordsburg Jail" is from her book It's Only Raven Laughing.