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  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Support Us
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume V >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume VI >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II

Sister, Incarcerated

by Margaret Ohrn
If only I could just recall
the words I gave the judge that day.
I think I’m sorry for it all.

​You roamed the streets that endless fall
and lost your keys, your child, your way.
But how, I just cannot recall.

Cell walls—a desperate ploy to stall,
to keep you safe and death at bay,
I think. I’m sorry for it all.

Guards searched my body, scared and small
but yours, in orange, would waste away.
If only I could not recall.

I saw you at dad’s funeral
in heels and pearls. No words to say.
I feel so sorry for it all.

I wish there’d been a crystal ball
to show the meanings of ​betray​.
If only I could just recall.
I think I’m sorry for it all.

Margaret Ohrn's poems have been published in South Florida Poetry Journal, The Anthology of New England Writers,  Blackberry Picking, Lyrical Voices from Vermont, as well as in the upcoming issue of The Midwest Quarterly (summer 2021). She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts.