The Subculture of the Wrongfully Accused

Ultimately improved by it:

slant light

hitting his prison obliquely

near the state bird’s pointed head

accentuated

crest, the black-ringed bill

from which wheat-wheat-wheat-wheat

from which whoit cheer, whoit cheer;

cheer- cheer-cheer

inspired Ronald Cotton to listen

as in his head, the solitary cardinal

indulged in snails

which seemed like polished fossils

of trophy hog tails

(after prize butchery)

that Ronald was able to recall,

his hair a mess of replicas of them

as industrious as the state

whose success was poultry & eggs

tobacco & soybeans

as well as convictions:

None as tightly knit as Jennifer’s

(not even the state flag)

that she could identify Cotton

that cotton’s taking on appearances

other than burst white

of a dense localized haze from which

to weave memory, following

pink-petaled start, rather a satellite

dish of a flower, pollen/sensor-

studded antenna protruding from

the center

undeniably; the jury couldn’t acquit

Cotton

of its role in documenting and altering

Jennifer’s history,

many lives changed

as result of consequences, sensors

that boast duality

of receptor and transmitter: witness:

insects give and take, taint

what is put out, taken in; mix

it up so that interrelatedness

spreads

and the understandable error of

metaphor

becomes less erroneous over time:

eleven years in prison, innocence

locked up, protected

although in prison, it resembled

something else.

If Cotton strained, he could see

the top

of a Ferris wheel on the horizon

just a possible

segment of a rainbow the length

of a chain

of cardinal feathers

even though it wasn’t that at all.

The eye witnesses all the time,

even the unseeing eye is turned

toward a focus

on black, saturation dense as

conviction; the eye

processes, pulls in whole vista to a

retinal speck

of convergence

which is to say there is some Cotton

in Poole,

some connection, independent

shared participation in cold

beer, occasional cards turkey-spread

in the right hand without knowing

the other

sank into the seat at the cinema

the same way

and sampled Funnel cake at the

state fair

within a week of each other

and more than that in common:

both being men

and convicted for what men really can and really do, do.

Including sometimes confessions

and apologies; cash reparations

after the innocence is free to extend its parameters

to unlocked doors, be an oversized

over-zealous white bird

floating down the aisle, its cottony

haze lifted

in order to kiss and marry Ronald’s

calm delight in being able

to take his time

leave his longshoreman’s mark on

ships

that take some of him to any port in the world: durable goods

such as the DNA whose precision

detects human exactitude,

and could build as many Ronalds as time would permit

something Jennifer now desperately wants to do, restoring

what was lost because it was like

something else,

because the fact of similarity

is compelling, convincing;

if connections could not be made,

there’d be no havens, no fugitive

status lost to fusion, no links

to God, no human

murmurings whose

constant echoes

are also the gentle silvery hum

of fans praying

over computer motors to cool them

and also mimic

motion of small wings amplified

to make sound

in the distance much like

the electric razor

preparing a head on death row

clean as a light bulb.

Ronald was prepared to be believed;

he saw the quiet manner of his long days in court

as evidence of his rationality and

contemplativeness

such as befits clergy; a potential

propensity for order,

mercy, the steadiness required to

dispense blessings

mostly on the undeserving without

emotion or judgment

selfishness or preference

while he was being judged guilty for

lack of emotion,

for Jennifer’s incontrovertible emotional insistence

on Cotton’s being the one—she had

to finger him

to be comfortable within her survival.

No way to mistake

to ever forget details documented in

memory,

the event relived to the point that it

resculpted her brain

into a Cottony bust (he was there

to be the perfect model)

whose reality floated away

in a Poole,

as only the reflection of Cotton

identified as source. A situation

also called (must-have) moonlight.

Here’s the new & improved Cotton:

eleven years in the making;

enough

time served to anger to ruin it; at that

same room’s temperature

it became doubt of clemency, pardon:

peculiar butter that erupted

as gratefulness for the miracle of absolute exoneration

when his impossibility as rapist

was proven.

Even Cotton conceded that

the composite sketch

bore a just resemblance to Cotton,

displayed a metaphor for men

like Cotton, the seeds of capability

in the structure of the face,

the human repertoire that includes

Cotton

who softly consents to meet Jennifer when she asks him to

funnel her regret and apologies deep into himself, accepting that

she meant no malice toward him

but toward

the perpetrator whom many men

resemble, all

brothers, family

of man resemblance; Cotton’s

own daughter, Cotton’s own wife

could be in a similar position; no

offense

taken, captivated by the beauty of

Jennifer; her superior logic

refusing to let the crime against her

silence her; as sure, as certain, as

dazzling

about speaking up about mistaking

Cotton for Poole

as she was in identifying

in the lineup

the closest thing there to Poole

the best

available, the incredible

likeness

that memory seized, filling gaps in

the recollected Poole

with Cotton’s particulars.

She felt better in her cotton- touched skin.

Metaphor is a form of forgiveness; a short rope of it knots-up

those that can’t come together any other way into being defined

by the other. Strange

and estranged pairings give rise to mutable truth

that can yield to both dawn and twilight

demands that things be seen differently.

Jennifer in moonlight instead of being illuminated moon whose face

was also in Emmett Till’s way, but this generation of Jennifer has another side

home late after a day of good faith

in which she and Cotton team up

at a church to speak up about doubt

as less a shadow than certainty.

Memory is as accurate as metaphor, an overlay

that always fits something, that like the purest

most sparkling water is too naïve

not to submit

to any vessel into which it’s poured.

Just to be guzzled.

Perhaps the vessel in which cotton

becomes a pool

in which North Carolina is shaped

like an embryo:

Humanity still on the brink

of infancy.