The Seas

by Samantha Hunt

I’d like to hold my finger below his nostrils for a long time, until it is damp from his exhalations. Then I’d put the finger in my mouth and drink Jude’s breath.

Prison is impossible for me to imagine even sitting inside it. It is the poorest place on earth because control attempts to live here like a king. Control paves the yard outside. Control doles out violence and prescription drugs. Control poisons the tiny mice that sometimes run down the alleys between cells. The mice are the only beautiful things that still can live in prison. But control is fixing that problem.

I have a Dixie Cup that I harvest my crying into so that later I can drink it, in case Jude is in there.