A quick poem about a man who escaped from prison,
went to a bar, held up the bar, took the money went
and bought a suit.
And then when I went and had a drink, guess where?
Same bar.
This is called "Freedom."
"Some time ago, back home, a man escaped.
Vanished.
From the State Penitentiary up in Santa Fe.
Suddenly gone like heels on a pair of cheap shoes
you thought would last long past February.
Made his way down to Albuquerque,
city of suspicious and bleeding tempers.
Where he sliced his way through the smoke.
The tired gossip.
And held up a bar.
Took all the trampled money that had been waiting.
Faithful as a wild sweetheart.
For him baby.
Only him.
Leaving the hardened regulars with something real
to talk about.
Bitter witnesses of a practical brand of magic.
By the time it took the most experienced of the patrons
to down half a dozen glasses of stagnant beer, he was back.
This time in such a saucy blue black suit
proper for weddings, funerals.
A night out to celebrate.
Run up a tab on a good whiskey.
His shipwreck-- shipwrecked face, fresh, oddly recognizable
in the buried guilt of the numbed mirror.
He had forgotten how much he had envied
that part of himself that had never
been shackled to himself."