Poetry Magazine

POEM
RELATED CONTENT Discover this poem's context and related poetry.

The Subculture of the Wrongfully Accused

By Thylias Moss b. 1954 Thylias Moss

Ultimately improved by it:	slant light
hitting his prison obliquely
near the state bird’s pointed head	accentuated
crest, the black-ringed bill
from which wheat-wheat-wheat-wheat
from which whoit cheer, whoit cheer;	cheer- cheer-cheer
inspired Ronald Cotton to listen
as in his head, the solitary cardinal	indulged in snails
which seemed like polished fossils
of trophy hog tails	(after prize butchery)
that Ronald was able to recall,
his hair a mess of replicas of them
as industrious as the state
whose success was poultry & eggs	tobacco & soybeans
as well as convictions:
None as tightly knit as Jennifer’s	(not even the state flag)
that she could identify Cotton
that cotton’s taking on appearances	other than burst white
of a dense localized haze from which	to weave memory, following
pink-petaled start, rather a satellite	dish of a flower, pollen/sensor-
studded antenna protruding from	the center
undeniably; the jury couldn’t acquit	Cotton
of its role in documenting and altering	Jennifer’s history,
many lives changed
as result of consequences, sensors	that boast duality
of receptor and transmitter: witness:	insects give and take, taint
what is put out, taken in; mix
it up so that interrelatedness	spreads
and the understandable error of	metaphor
becomes less erroneous over time:
eleven years in prison, innocence	locked up, protected
although in prison, it resembled	something else.
If Cotton strained, he could see	the top
of a Ferris wheel on the horizon	just a possible
segment of a rainbow the length	of a chain
of cardinal feathers
even though it wasn’t that at all.	The eye witnesses all the time,
even the unseeing eye is turned	toward a focus
on black, saturation dense as	conviction; the eye
processes, pulls in whole vista to a	retinal speck
of convergence
which is to say there is some Cotton	in Poole,
some connection, independent	shared participation in cold
beer, occasional cards turkey-spread
in the right hand without knowing	the other
sank into the seat at the cinema	the same way
and sampled Funnel cake at the	state fair
within a week of each other
and more than that in common:	both being men
and convicted for what men really can and really do, do.
Including sometimes confessions		and apologies; cash reparations
after the innocence is free to extend its parameters
to unlocked doors, be an oversized	over-zealous white bird
floating down the aisle, its cottony	haze lifted
in order to kiss and marry Ronald’s	calm delight in being able
to take his time
leave his longshoreman’s mark on	ships
that take some of him to any port in the world: durable goods
such as the DNA whose precision	detects human exactitude,
and could build as many Ronalds as time would permit
something Jennifer now desperately wants to do, restoring
what was lost because it was like	something else,
because the fact of similarity	is compelling, convincing;
if connections could not be made,	there’d be no havens, no fugitive
status lost to fusion, no links	to God, no human
murmurings whose	constant echoes
are also the gentle silvery hum	of fans praying
over computer motors to cool them	and also mimic
motion of small wings amplified	to make sound
in the distance much like	the electric razor
preparing a head on death row	clean as a light bulb.
Ronald was prepared to be believed;
he saw the quiet manner of his long days in court
as evidence of his rationality and	contemplativeness
such as befits clergy; a potential	propensity for order,
mercy, the steadiness required to	dispense blessings
mostly on the undeserving without	emotion or judgment
selfishness or preference
while he was being judged guilty for	lack of emotion,
for Jennifer’s incontrovertible emotional insistence
on Cotton’s being the one—she had	to finger him
to be comfortable within her survival.	No way to mistake
to ever forget details documented in	memory,
the event relived to the point that it	resculpted her brain
into a Cottony bust (he was there	to be the perfect model)
whose reality floated away	in a Poole,
as only the reflection of Cotton
identified as source. A situation	also called (must-have) moonlight.
Here’s the new & improved Cotton:
eleven years in the making;	enough
time served to anger to ruin it; at that	same room’s temperature
it became doubt of clemency, pardon:	peculiar butter that erupted
as gratefulness for the miracle of absolute exoneration
when his impossibility as rapist	was proven.
Even Cotton conceded that	the composite sketch
bore a just resemblance to Cotton,	displayed a metaphor for men
like Cotton, the seeds of capability	in the structure of the face,
the human repertoire that includes	Cotton
who softly consents to meet Jennifer when she asks him to
funnel her regret and apologies deep into himself, accepting that
she meant no malice toward him	but toward
the perpetrator whom many men	resemble, all
brothers, family
of man resemblance; Cotton’s	own daughter, Cotton’s own wife
could be in a similar position; no	offense
taken, captivated by the beauty of	Jennifer; her superior logic
refusing to let the crime against her
silence her; as sure, as certain, as	dazzling
about speaking up about mistaking	Cotton for Poole
as she was in identifying	in the lineup
the closest thing there to Poole	the best
available, the incredible	likeness
that memory seized, filling gaps in	the recollected Poole
with Cotton’s particulars.	She felt better in her cotton- touched skin.
Metaphor is a form of forgiveness; a short rope of it knots-up
those that can’t come together any other way into being defined
by the other. Strange
and estranged pairings give rise to mutable truth
that can yield to both dawn and twilight
demands that things be seen differently.
Jennifer in moonlight instead of being illuminated moon whose face
was also in Emmett Till’s way, but this generation of Jennifer has another side
home late after a day of good faith	in which she and Cotton team up
at a church to speak up about doubt	as less a shadow than certainty.
Memory is as accurate as metaphor, an overlay
that always fits something, that like the purest
most sparkling water is too naïve	not to submit
to any vessel into which it’s poured.	Just to be guzzled.
Perhaps the vessel in which cotton	becomes a pool
in which North Carolina is shaped	like an embryo:
Humanity still on the brink	of infancy.

Source: Poetry (January 2006).

Biography

Thylias Moss’s poetry collections include Tokyo Butter (2006), Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler (1999), Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (1993), Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky (1991), At Redbones (1990), Pyramid of Bone (1989), and Hosiery Seams on a Bowlegged Woman (1983). Known for expansive poems full of details ranging from art, history, and laundry detergents to ants and Disney characters, she has . . .

Continue reading this biography