My Nephew and I Escape from Prison
he’s technically inclined enough
at just six years old
to operate most tools
building things like a filthy
Frank Lloyd Wright
obsessed with the idiosyncrasies
of each claw machine
he intends to break ground with
a shovel and begin digging
his hand like one of his
beloved blue print envisioned
crayola claws until there is a hole
big enough for us both to get
to the other side where I’ll be
charged with explaining to
people that we are prisoners
of a psychological spectrum
we refuse to serve needless
time we could spend building
things, writing poems and on
parole from the menace of
social stigma we are too
distracted by our gifted
obsessions to waste time
paying attention to as
we find the miracles in
the attics of our minds,
minds no one quite has
like the two of us.
About the Author: Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press). Recent work can be found in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, The American Journal of Poetry, Big Hammer, Trailer Park Quarterly and So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library.
More By Kevin Ridgeway:
Five Hundred Channels and Nothing On
Image Credit: Vincent Van Gogh “Prisoners Exercising” (1890)
As It Ought To Be 