By. Salena Deane
When I asked my dad if I could interview him about prison
we were on the couch in pajamas watching Law and Order: SVU
He had been “resting his eyes” since the opening credits—
fallen asleep again after another week of empty overtime.
He sat up startled by the dog’s bark, cleared his throat of the day’s nicotine,
and tried to pretend he had been watching the whole time. “Why is he in there?”
my dad asked, seeing Stabler, the cop, sitting in solitary confinement.
“As an experiment,'' I said, “to try to understand.” We sat in silence
as the scene played out. “How long has he been in there?”
“3 days.” My dad sucked his teeth in disdain. I asked him how long
he had spent in solitary: 6 months out of 18. (He was put there
for starting a fight with a guard.) We sat still, faces pointed
at the TV. Then it was my turn to pretend: thinking of my dad
in a cell—dazed and alone—I could taste salt down in my throat, wiped
tears from my outward-facing cheek. “We can talk about anything,”
my dad said, as Dick Wolf’s name scrolled the screen, “anything but that.”
Salena Deane is a young poet who lives in Massachusetts. A loyal employee of Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts), she spends most days making lattes and crafting poems. You can find more about Salena on her IG @salenajdeane.