Tuesday, November 1,2022: Nancy Lubarsky's "Volunteer"

Volunteer

 

I left this poem behind in the prison where I

volunteer once a month. I couldn’t bear to take

it with me. I never finished it. I never wrote it

down. Early that morning, I set up the CD recorder

 

to capture the prisoners’ voices. The women read

storybooks into the microphone to their child or

grandchild (or perhaps someone else’s). We

encourage the prisoners to add personal messages:

 

I miss you, I will be home soon (even if it isn’t true).

Later on, the CD and the book are mailed. We are told

during training not to talk with the inmates. It could lead

to manipulation and favors. Often, though, before I can

 

stop it, someone tells me about her crime, or the months

or years till she gets released. When the first woman

entered the room that day, she was petite, timid ─ I thought

my poem could be about her – her mistake, how she rose

 

above her situation. But she said very little. She did share

a family photo: her daughter, granddaughter (who would

get the book), her 95 year old parents. I pressed record.

Her voice was warm and gentle, as if she were seated in

 

her picture, not this cinderblock classroom where guards

patrolled outside. While we waited for the CD to eject,

I thought she might say more. Here, I expected my

poem could turn melancholy, bittersweet, remorseful.

 

But she stayed silent. Afterwards, the social worker

told me about the ex-boyfriend she shot and the

new girlfriend she stabbed ─ so much blood. She’d only

been there two of the seventy years she would serve.

© 2022 Nancy Lubarsky

Bio: Nancy Lubarsky has been an educator for over 35 years. A retired school superintendent, she holds a Doctorate in English Education from Rutgers University. Nancy has been published in various journals, including Edison Literary Review, Lips, Poetry Nook, Poetica, Tiferet, Exit 13, Stillwater Review, Howl of Sorrow Anthology, Paterson Literary Review, and US1 Worksheets. She received honorable mention in the 2014 and 2016 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, and Editor’s Choice in 2017. She has also been nominated twice for the Pushcart prize. She is the author of two books: Tattoos (Finishing Line Press) and The Only Proof (Kelsay Press).