PICTURES OF BARE-CHESTED CHILDREN

I elbow through the cluster to
spy the newly-posted notice
printed on formal letterhead;
the subject of the memo reads:
“Pictures of Bare-Chested Children”.

The mandate goes on to explain
the Department of Corrections
has decided that we can’t have
photos of bare-chested children
“since there are clear legitimate
penological interests
in not allowing offenders
to possess personal pictures
which exhibit child nudity.”

In my head appears the snapshot
of my eighteen-year-old son Matt
and tiny grandson toddler Zach
together sharing the saddle
of Apache in Dad’s timber.
My first son and my first grandson.
The image was captured at the
Mother’s Day picnic ’92.
I had been incarcerated
for 6 sequestered years by then.

Matthew’s long Levied cowboy legs
push his boots into the stirrups
while Zach proudly perches in
front of his protective young uncle.
Both boys are shirtless and handsome.

Matt and Dad’s gelding died that year,
and Zachary is now 20.

This sweet moment in time is kept
in my Bible for only me to
privately view now and again,
but prisoners are all molestors
and are ordered to relinquish
dear memories which are now deemed
to be sick child pornography.

Pictures of bare-chested children - -
like preemies in incubators,
or toddlers in trunks at the beach,
or laughing splashing swimming kids,
or bubbled babes in bathtubs all
must be sent away lest we lust
like predatory pedophiles.

Who are these people who gaze at
children with a sexual eye?
What did happen to warp them so?
And can’t they still lust off young ones
in magazines and on TV?
Why must I lose precious pictures
that no one ever sees but me?

Private contraband photographs
must be removed from the prison
by July first, two-thousand nine.
But I’ll still have copies with me.
They haven’t figured out a way
to scour and purge my memory banks.


Patricia Prewitt
May 11, 2009  (Mother’s Day)