A thousand inmates’ spoons for music
While the paper kite flies like a boy-weed caught
In wind from San Quentin to nestle in the next
Prison and the next. Do not do this thing,
The kite said,
But not that gently on the page of it.
No, said
The Governor, Not if Mr. Williams won’t atone.
Underground, a pen of clemency will not irritate
The vellum of the night.
There was a snag, the warden said.
So enormous was Tookie’s arm
The needle couldn’t enter it, eleven minutes poking
There to find the vein,
Thirty-six to put him down.
Tookie was a big man,
The warden said, But it’s only salt that stops
The heart—you know—that simple.
But if I say “simple” for example, I mean
That in the private gardens
Of our aristocracy, the animals are haltered in
The children are only very gently
Sad, a habit of the class they were born to.
Me, I am not “mean,” I’m told, only
Vengeful, which is a relief to me, of course.
The wind is kicking up now. Lung for lung.
Soon I will be done for.
On his last night here on earth, he took only milk.