[On the day of his release from prison, one of my buddies did not know where he would be sleeping that night. Of the four inmates who have been released from our hall since my arrival, two have already found their way back into prison.]

[On the day of his release from prison, one of my buddies did not know where he would be sleeping that night. Of the four inmates who have been released from our hall since my arrival, two have already found their way back into prison.]

A POEM

Slowly they emerge from the page

Each one imperfectly beautiful

Antennae stroke the air, tasting the sky that will lift them away.

Tentatively, they rise from the paper.

The window is open.

The creatures flutter out between the bars

And spiral upwards in the warn sunlight,

Up and up and up.

But quickly their wings begin to flake

Diminishing with every beat until they are weak and tattered.

The butterflies fall, as gently as they first rose.

Tumbling silently to where they began their doomed flight.

Lifeless, they settle back onto the page.

And the dust of their wings turns to paper.