99

The number of years of your sentence ...

Your favorite number.

“It’s lucky for me. They have to rule in my favor now.”

Forget-me-nots

Your favorite flowers.

“Cuz they match my eyes, faded though they are now.”

You threaded them into every cap, bootie, bag you crocheted.

Always, you asked for smokes in exchange—

Your neighbors ordered them in the next commissary.

Once you asked for a Kit Kat, excited that your daughter

would visit you. They denied her entry, and you returned to the cell

and flushed down the Kit Kat right away.

Afterward, you crocheted a dress for her, sitting up

on the lower bunk, not sleeping for a week.

Each time we met, you’d end with an “I’m so tired” breath—

You lost your appeal.

What started as an “ordinary cold”

—the prison doc diagnosing

on the kite itself that you sent requesting an X-ray—

turned into cells multiplying like the lace in your hands.

“At least, I am getting out”—you had winked

the last time we met.