Friday, March 11

Liberation


adapted from 

Born in captivity
Salvador, my savior, of messy head and bright dark eyes
Tucked into a narrow metal bed
His sheet covered with quetzal and toucan soaring through forests
Prisoners here bathe in showers cold as winter rain
Yet guards heat water for his bath
When I may, I push his stoller though the dusty prison square, visiting the pigeons

My father claims 44 seconds sealed my sentence, 
I raged at the hooded justice
"No hay terroristas criminales en el MRTA;. es un movimiento revolucionario!
"There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA.; it's a revolutionary movement!"
Shouting to be heard

But I know the truth
I rented the La Molina house for them;
Though I only know code names, I knew they were
Revolution
I fled when I saw piles of guns and smelled dynamite
Yet still sentenced to life in 1995 by a faceless judge 

First to Yanamayo, high in the Andes, overlooking Lake Titicaca
Then to Socabaya
Next, the women's prison of Chorillos
Finally, maximum-security in Cajamarca
Living in 6 foot by 9 foot cell

My survival, baking bread
providing the jailed and silenced with sustenance and sweetness

20 years disappeared like so many silenced villagers
Paroled in Miraflores
‘Free’ to roam Lima’s colonial parks with their lovers entwined when night comes
My Anibal, Salvador’s father, long lost to me
Threatened by citizens holding snarling dogs
Imprisoned still by private judgments
“I was much freer in jail”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Berenson

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