I’m upstairs behind bars
in the only cell
for a woman—
just big enough
for a cot,
a sink,
a commode,
and one tall
pregnant
colored
girl—
ME.
We broke the law
by marrying,
says Sheriff Brooks.
Richard, he’s out.
That’s good.
But I’m scared.
I pull my feet up
best I can
under this growing belly,
off the sticky floor
pull ’em up onto the bed
so the rats
can have the floor
to themselves.
I breathe through
my mouth
so I don’t have to
smell bug spray.
I’d be in prison.
From high school
to wedding
to prison.
After two days
my mama comes to visit.
I try not to cry, but I cry
real easy these days.
Mama says it’s the pregnancy.
I know that.
She says, “We tryin’, Baby,
but we don’t want to rock the boat.
They say we can’t get you out
or they’ll punish Richard bad.
You don’t want that now,
do you?”
No, no,
’course not.
Will they let me out to have my baby?
I can’t have a baby in here—
with the rats
scurrying across the floor.
I CAN’T.
They must know that.
I been in here three days,
three nights.
They march
a man past me—
I’m the only girl here—
marches this
white inmate
up the stairs
to my floor
taking some fancy route
from the yard back to his cell,
and the guard says to him,
“I oughta send you in there with her tonight—
with the Negress.”
I know he’s tryin’
to scare me.
I can hardly sleep,
keeping one eye open,
to see if anyone
comes.
Another day passes
and I’m still in here.
Mama comes to
visit again.
She says, “Daddy can’t come
’cause, all I know,
they’ll throw him in too.”
And not my brothers—
they can’t come either.
“They’re harder on men
than women,” she says.
“There’s nothing
we can do, Baby.”
I don’t want to cry again
in front of my mama.
She already feels so bad.
“He’s fine. Asked for his Mama,
but he’s fine.
I can take care of Sidney.”
I sleep on my cot,
wake up on my cot.
At mealtimes
food is handed
through the little window
cut in the bars.
I use my commode,
bathe in my little sink,
hold my belly close,
sorry this baby
been in jail before
it ever sees the world.
I live under the eyes
of my white guards—
those two deputies—
FIVE nights,
SIX days.
On Thursday,
my daddy comes
and pays my $1,000 bond.
Everyone we know
must have pitched in.
First I get pregnant,
get pregnant again,
drop out of school,
then I get ARRESTED.
I am so ashamed.
decide to let me out.
I go home
to my parents’ house—
the house where me and Richard
were arrested.
But I get to be with my Sidney.
Richard at his parents’ house—
the Loving house.
They say,
“Keep apart.”
We surely do not want
to go back to jail.
Doesn’t matter one hoot
that we married in
Washington, D.C.
Here
in Virginia
can’t be married.
We’re told it’s true
in most every other state as well.
No race mixing.
That’s what they say.
Our baby will be born
before the court date.
Me with my parents,
Richard with his.
We wait.