Parole Hearing - Poem

Progressive, The, August, 2001 by Martin Espada

--for Ben

   After three hours of interrogation by the parole board,
   and the prisoner repeating I did not do this thing,
   his brown hands were trembling, and the trembling
   spilled his plastic cup at the table
   where the prisoner sat, and his body stiffened
   as the water oozed across the table to the edge,
   inches from the prisoner's lap and his blue suit,
   and the seven faces of the parole board
   watched the puddle creeping closer,
   and their silence was the silence of water
   half a mile down, till one of them asked
   You need something to wipe that up?
   as if to say You will die in prison,
   and the prisoner, his breath returned,
   raised his head and answered Yes,
   as if to say I did not do this thing.

Martin Espada was recently named the Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts. His latest book of poems is called "A Mayan Astronomer in Hell's Kitchen" (Norton, 2000).