'And I could cry but I won’t, because I’m far too blessed.' Photo: by Eva Wilcock on Unsplash
Inside
Poem by Sue Hampton
Once the lock clangs open
I dance alone,
obscured by billiard table and bookshelf
in the sunlight by the bars
where an old, stiff cobweb glints
like the wire looping high into bright sky outside.
At the foot of the fence old litter clings.
Nothing happens fast.
Requests are adjourned, sidelined, forgotten.
Still the refusnik phone in my cell
lies unconnected
to the cash they counted at Reception
And I could cry but I won’t,
because I’m far too blessed.
I wear my privilege like a cross.
Hearing music, I dare to strut some stuff,
grin when the officers boogie too,
wonder whether this
is the good thing for today,
a day when I haven’t used
words like climate, oil, floods and emissions.
But the baths haven’t erased them from my skin
or shifted them from the deepest place
where they lodge and stab
with light.
Sue wrote this from HMP Bronzefield, after being arrested for breaking an injunction against protesting at Kingsbury Oil Terminal. She was released with a suspended sentence.
