Ten Ways of Looking at Prison Lunch

Ten Ways of Looking at Prison Lunch

Gloria Jensen
(With apologies to Wallace Stevens)

1. With both hands over your eyes, releasing
one hand slowly to peep.
2. Through the eyes of a friend you have by
the hand—who reads braille.
3. In the bing [solitary] where you can refuse
to have the thing brought in at all and just lie
there and sleep.
4. From across the steam line, where people
marvel at your petite body (if only they knew
it's not by choice you prefer to remain frail and
cautious).
5. From a prison visitor's point of view — when
suddenly, miraculously, all one sees is steak,
greens and potatoes.
6. From your window late at night as you
watch one man run with a rake, followed by
another with a sack, followed by a corrections
officer, followed by a ruckus you've not seen
but heard — then all three returning, dragging
a heavy sack.
7. Witnessing something come ashore in the
bay and thinking: my, but it gave up a great
fight.
8. Wondering why they have signs saying DO
NOT PEE ON THE GRASS. Then seeing the
kitchen girls go out, mow it down and bring it in.
9. Good Friday—when all the world's
generous and the relief truck pulls up to the
kitchen door to drop off loads of potatoes they
couldn't unload anywhere else.
10. Seeing more clearly the lunch of steak,
greens and potatoes—as you attack the steak
first and realize the fight you witnessed (#6) is
not yet over, for the beast is biting you now too.