#6 Kevin Brophy 'Four prisoners I have known'

There are four poets I know
who have been imprisoned.

One now writes the tiniest poems
possible,
his syllables crammed forever
into a world so reduced
they can only appeal to the higher
courts of imagination.

Another writes of zoos, parks, and
the outdoors as if he's just been let out
into it after a long absence.
Everything in his poems is puzzling.

Another narrowed his poems
with precision
until they resembled bars,
one bar per page,
then they disappeared.

The fourth one was in love
with an image of himself
as an ex-con.
He wrote outlaw poems
until his freedom came
to the usual end.