FIRST BOOKS ISSUE Reginald Dwayne Betts   SUPREME MATHEMATICS Trigger and Wise wrap hands hidden in socks over a steel bar and tug their weight. Their upper bodies bear painted flags: the miracle of a prison tattoo gun, ink stolen from smoke. Cold air pushes hard out their mouths. They count off reps. When they pull, the splash of colors against their skin splices the air. Each rep could be a year in prison, and after two hours, Wise would still be counting, the sound of numbers snuffing out everything else. THE DAY CARLOS JUMPED FROM THE TOP TIER Sheila Rotner Soul Cage II screen woven into wire mesh with sand (2003) 17x17x17 inches more work by Sheila Rotner A bloodied white shirt, the body of a life Sentence half hidden by the icebox. Everything Darkens. A dozen or so wild eyes over It. Steam from the shower over it. Rehabilitation A lit Newport. This is what we talk about. The body below the tier, the small gasps Without a story, with no words for this story. It is a man. He is someone's son. A heartsore. When he screams, our eyes open. Again. A bid's honesty: time staring at time. Whatever smell is there lies low, won't step Up. A sock kicks out & the sigh that follows Follows a stray cat's yowl. It is always raining. From the outside, everything in here inspires Screams. If you stand on the top tier, the drop Is from hell to hell. It is many falls. Someone Pretends to know something worth knowing. The body is fifteen feet past knowledge. People Say he bodied himself. Stretched himself out. If he rises, who will he turn to? Or turn into? A CELL HOUSES A ONE-SIDED WAR This old man, with his hair tied by the cracked walls of cell B8, swore some jail cells house a one-sided war, and some men lean shoulders on past highs. The cracked walls of cell B8 swore broken men peeled back tattoos to cry and some lean shoulders on past highs after, clank! then yoke followed closed door. Broken men peeled back tattoos to cry, touched dirt as some wild man's whore after, clank! then yoke followed closed door. Nobody whispered to guards that Black Tye touched dirt as some wild man's whore. Name who is hurt by what they deny. Nobody whispered to guards that Black Tye now shivers for no reason, his body a sore. Name who is hurt by what they deny in court. Someone not warned before now shivers for no reason, his body a sore. Who knows escape is reason enough to lie in court. Someone not warned becfore, that some jails house a one-sided war. Who knows escape is reason enough to lie: this old man, with his hair tied.   RED ONION STATE PRISON A warehouse of iron bunks: straight lines & right angles flush against the gutted side of a mountain. Inside, white paint cracks into a thousand pockmarks and listens to the sound of a padlock splitting a man's scalp & voices of guards in shot- guns or the hand that tilts a slender metal rod, then scrapes it against concrete & stretches night longer than a sinner's prayer in Red Onion's small ruined cells where ten thousand years of sentences beckon over heads & hearts, silent, a promise, like mistletoe.   SATURDAYS WAITED for bodies .............visiting from outside, walking into centers .............of correction, to get strip searched, reminded of how a word— C/O, kite, ice .............pick, death row—tossed into a room .............of men changes everything. On the other .............side, there is a man & a balled ............. fist, quiet while guards' hands .............rummage boots, a white shirt, boxers— .............as if there exists something anyone would .............bring from a prison cell .............to his younger brother; while on the other side, a bra strap .............reminds a metal detector of a knife, or .............reminds a guard of flesh: some- .............thing soft walking, eyes open, ready .............to still even life- sentence-bad .............men who squat and cough contempt, lift .............bared feet, wait for a table, pray for .............visitors, hands always cold & reaching, .............empty, so empty. Aware.     Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James Books, 2010) and a memoir A Question of Freedom (Avery/Penguin, 2009). He is the winner of a 2010 NAACP Image Award, the Soros Justice Fellowship from the Open Society Institute, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Alice James Books is a nonprofit cooperative press founded in 1973, and since 1994 affiliated with the University of Maine at Farmington. Reprinted by permission.   Published in Volume 12, Number 3, Summer 2011. To read more by this author: Reginald Dwayne Betts: Wartime Issue