Another word that gets me is just, correction.
Correction facility.
I just think it's, again, like, just the absurdity of all
of this is--
"Under Correction"-- well, with privatization everything has
become like a moneymaker, and so now most people don't even
get to visit, physically, their loved ones in prison
because it is such a moneymaker to have video or Skype
or to have to pay for your 15 minute phone call or your 20
minutes of video.
"Under Correction."
When we visit the correctional facility to see my sister,
we do not get to see her.
We watch a television of her.
This is not the correct body of my sister.
She is somewhere on the other side of the screen.
I am somewhere on this side of the screen.
And this box within a box, we are each less than ourselves.
We are the un-body, not quite sisters, instead a distance.
We are a performance of people, but not real people.
We are a TV show.
In literary terms, this is a frame narrative,
a box within a box.
I'm not sure who is the narrator, me
or the person watching me behind the small, black camera
in the ceiling corner of this room.
But there is a third space, the space of touch,
which has, of course, been corrected.
I am not seeing my sister, my eyes are not touching her.
She is being held in the screen, and for her, we
are being held in the screen.
They move her from facility to facility
with no warning or explanation, because they can.
And I follow her because I must.
I follow her into every television or video
screen, VIZIO, LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony.
All the cells in a plasma display are smashed together,
held inside by two glass plates, front, back.
I am caught in the middle of a riddle of glass,
because I made the mistake of looking
for my sister, who was behind the glass
from where I am behind the glass.
The screen has fingerprints smudged on it
from other visitors who reached out for who was not there.
I tell myself, do not touch the screen.
Do not let them know that they are punishing
your body by taking your body away,
by correcting your body so that it knows it does not
deserve to touch its sister.
Do not reach out and touch the screen to join in this act.
Do not remind your sister that her body is
being corrected to a condition.
I do not touch the screen.
I cannot touch my sister.
My sister needs money to buy a thermal
because it is so cold at night.
I say, maybe they keep it so cold here to deter germs,
to make it safer for my sister's body.
But we both know they make it cold to punish.
This is their mistake, I think, this coldness.
It is making my sister remember her body.
Her body is fighting this punishment.
It is shivering, as if to say, I deserve more.
I am watching her shiver, and I am in my mind
all this time, holding my sister in my arms.
Gracias.
[APPLAUSE]