The Wrong Gift

In 1982 you came to stay in the mission next door,

With your long grey hair and beard.

Imprisoned for 44 years for a heinous crime you committed at 18,

You were Johannesburg’s longest-term prisoner.

They called you Monty,

You were quiet and sad.

The woman from the State said you needed a halfway house

for a couple of months.

You had one possession,

A little black kitten with a white paw,

You called it ‘Blackfoot’!?

At 20 I was so busy with children, people, church, cooking and suchlike,

Yet you called for me often,

Wanting me to sit in the dark and listen to you talk.

Sometimes I spoke…

I wanted to make you smile,

So I bought a gift for Blackfoot.

It was a shiny stone collar with a little silver bell,

Pretty..I thought.

You accepted it graciously,

Together we put it on her.

You gave me a whisper of a smile.

The next day the collar was gone,

You apologized saying it had gotten lost somehow.

I was relieved,

It had been the wrong gift anyway.

It symbolized bondage,

Not the Freedom you now experienced.

Was it because I felt the prisoner?

Therefore a shiny, pretty collar.

You left after a month,

With 4 cats!

I was serving a sentence too,

Not knowing then.

Only now, older and wiser,

I write wishing I had told you

I had bought the wrong gift,

And that I was sorry.

You never seemed to mind though,

Somehow you liked me, you trusted me.

You called for me often,

Wanting me to sit in the dark and listen to you talk.

Sometimes I spoke…

~fin~