The Governor
Image of artist Charles Demuth’s drawing, Boxer, courtesy Smithsonian Open Access.
Did you shadowbox in your cell?
Upbeat—chipper, even—
perfect hair
like Warren’s werewolf:
When you were swinging at air
surrounded by Colorado concrete,
did you think,
How the f - - - did it come to this?
A winter dawn,
you’re readying for a run,
and instead,
under cover of darkness,
the FBI comes to your door,
apprehends you;
removes you
from your home,
your wife,
your children.
There’s an indignation
that comes to an
interrupted runner,
waylaid by external forces:
a pulled hamstring,
an intrusive text that leads to another,
an unanticipated storm,
a federal arrest warrant.
You may not have seen it coming—
probably didn’t.
After all,
it’s not as though
you took a bulldozer to Meigs Field
while Chicago was sleeping.
Handcuffs for you, Governor.
No polite turning-yourself-in.
No surrendering-on-the-warrant.
No cozy deals for you, Governor.
You pissed off both parties:
the one that controls the State,
and the one that doesn’t.
Not a good place to be.
But I’m a scrapper,
you thought,
a fighter,
you thought,
this is bullshit,
you thought,
I can beat this,
you thought.
You thought wrong.
If,
If,
If,
If only.
You ended up with pen time,
lots of it:
time to read Kipling,
time to run in small circles
through a western courtyard,
time to replay the trial
and your testimony
and the closing arguments
over and over again.
You acclimated to this life,
because the prison is the ring:
the smell of sweat and compressed flesh,
the desire of movement in a confined space,
the loneliness of an ancient sport of fury.
Did you bob and weave
against the wall,
pretending there was
a bony-faced phantom
from Springfield
facing you?
Long days,
you spent in the cell;
years passed by,
running in a slow circle,
time moving like
a courtroom clock,
a glacial appeal.
It’s the sport,
not the law,
that brought comfort,
the retreat into the imagination,
the mirage of youth,
reminiscence:
the scissoring of feet,
the jabbing of air,
the crushing of want,
the punching of worry,
the prosecution of time
in a liminal space.
The Governor, Copyright © 2023 by Donna Kathryn Kelly