A Prison Visit

An academic examination of a favorite lullaby

 

“I wondered about you the day you told me,

 you tied the white cradle 

in the treetop

and left it there to rock in the breeze.

 

I pictured the baby,

tiny face peering from soft

flannel shawls, bundled

warm against the stiff breeze.

 

And I almost said—but I didn’t—

‘what the hell are you thinking?’

 

Instead, I sat and listened to you sing

your stupid song and got all caught up

in its catchy, morbid rhymes

and didn’t say a word.”