Berlin, New Hampshire, is home to the state’s largest
Federal Correctional Institution
Berlin, New Hampshire, is home to the state’s largest Federal Correctional Institution—
at night, I rinse the stench of fish from
my skin. Joel Osteen plays on the television,
talking about gratitude in a silk-lined suit.
“too much bleach
and your spirit will begin to crack.”
in the morning, I wrap my grief in tinfoil,
saving it for a slow day. when I was younger I
thought, I’m not pretty, but I get shit done.
the days aren’t done like
they used to. my mama almost lost it
once, whispering over the phone, it’s my time.
three months after, her voice swirling in my
ear drum for eight corporate hours,
time drip dripping on, I think,
it might be mine.
I suppose it’s something about the overwhelming
sanitation and hop-scotching music: everyone’s got a
dream and a habit, and none of it makes for good food.
the coworker with a mustache stares, his pocket
knife swinging like a pendulum.
our small talk is a list of girls he’s choked in bed.
I wait for him to leave first, imagining my
limbs delicately splayed across his trunk.
in the end, it’s up to a guy named mike
to let me go. as a rule, I hate everyone
in a vest. but his face is too sincere for
fluorescents, so I grant him an exception. he takes
one look and says we’re almost out of here kid.
glancing out the window, I imagine
my heart is somewhere in those mountains
thick with mud, and hope
the trees still have words for me. past the gray
stone and barbed-wire. enough bricks for every
dream. on the Mt. Jasper trail there are thousands of
footprints, down and over. and over.
I imagine grief usually ends
with shivering. a pair of flax-seed eyes
dashing by my boots. twisted and small in the
soft, frosted earth. a place where fleabanes and blue-eyed
grasses still bloom. I imagine there’s nothing else to do with this life, but continue.
Amanda Venclovaite Pirani is a senior at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI studying creative writing and political science. Her poetry has appeared in Sandpiper Review, Potted Purple Magazine, and Xylem Literary Magazine. When she is not writing poems, Amanda enjoys crocheting and hiking New England’s many mountains.
The Albion Review 