Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Reginald Dwayne BettsAdded: Monday, December 9, 2019 / From "Felon," (W. W. Norton & Co., 2019). Used with permission.— for Rojai Fentress
& the Judge told him to count
The trees in the parking lot
Where there were only cars: Zero
The same number of stars
You could see on a night in the city.
& the Judge told him the parking lot will
Be crowded with trees, oaks & spruces
& pines & willows & grass & maybe
Horses before he smells the city
On a Sunday afternoon; & another
Word for this story is azalea, the purple
Bouquet his mother might have buried
Her face against, had she known for this
Judge sentencing Fats was a Funeral —
A mourning, another purplish bruise; Fats
Pled not guilty, which is to say, he has never
Murdered a man, & in the courtroom, he
Washed his hands against the air, as if
To say fuck everything; imagine, no hair
Troubled his face that afternoon &
He'd never held a razor, except
Inside his mouth, the best weapon a man
Could hope for, unless you were
The cat I saw tussle, for a second,
With a Louisville slugger, turning
The razor under that man’s tongue
Into a kind of prayer, his hands leaping
To his face & blood appearing as if
Always there, & the man’s hands
Fumbling against the air, as if ablution
Could be found drenched in blood,
& remembering reminds me that Fat’s
Washing was a kind of holy, a plea,
A reaching, for trees, for wild horses,
For all the violence he’s known, to make
Of him free, when innocence failed.
Listen as Reginald Dwayne Betts reads,
"Elegy Ending With a Cell Door Closing."
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of four books. His latest collection of poetry, Felon, was published in October 2019 by W.W. Norton. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School. Betts was a featured poet at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2016.