Kevin Ridgeway

Prison Wives

They are all scattered 
about the seaside waiting area, 
applying last minute touches 
of makeup and straightening 
their pantyhose.  One by one, 
we enter the security checkpoint.
We stare at the guard in disbelief 
when he commands our mother 
to remove her brassiere after
its underwire sets off 
the metal detector.  They hold 
it up for all to see like a prize 
or a Ripley's Believe It or Not!
oddity before they grant us access 
to the next security checkpoint 
across a concrete bridge 
closer and closer to 
a bittersweet family reunion
beyond the chicken wire,
my father in tears 
while I bounce around in his lap 
and in the blink of an eye 
they take him back 
passed the iron doors 
after he makes out 
with my mother 
in a frenzy 
of desperate passion 
while the inmate 
next to us sticks his hand 
under his wife's dress
in front of their children,
and her eyes roll into
the back of her head.

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Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press). Recent work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Cultural Weekly, Gasconade Review,The American Journal of Poetry, San Pedro River Review, The Cape Rock and So it Goes:  The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, among others.  A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.