The man working on my mother’s house
is an ex-con like me.
He doesn’t say, but removes his shirt,
the heat pressing 90, &
although I don’t have them, I recognize
his tattoos a specific blue-black stain
from melted plastic chess pieces
shot through skin with a homemade gun. 

The first guy was older, an employee
of the man my mother hired.
“Is it that obvious?” he said
when I asked, & I grieved for him
in my error of forgetting
not everyone stands atop the past
to point & shout. 

I’m keeping quiet with this one.
He’s his own boss—hard worker
his marked skin skinnying as he sweats.
Not afraid of him, I’ve seen human faces
behind the orange jumpsuit &
khaki prison garb,
watched how easily a straight face
twists into the rictus of a clown. 

I think it’s camaraderie I’m seeking,
ready to yell, I’m one of you!
as to a poet reading from her latest book.
I won’t. Best we smoke
our Marlboros in silence
as though we are still prisoners &
must dispose of our tobacco
before a guard walks by this sunlit cell.