Jill Barrie

The Jail

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

Somehow I must incorporate the jail,
incessant clanging of doors in corridors,

jangling of keys before doors open,
after they close. The matron’s stiff walk,

the cell’s yellow walls. I must mention
the steel mirror, seatless toilet,

numbered underwear, lunches of bologna,
oleo, bread, handcuffs, body searches,

insecticidal sprays. But I don’t want
to sound like a grade-B movie.

I don’t want pity. I was guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
Released, I raced down to the beach,

a woman in flames, and let the walls
of water break over me.

𐫱𐫱𐫱

Jill Barrie’s poems have appeared in American Literary Review, Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review and The North American Review among others. She has been a finalist in PSA’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award and Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. Recently her work can be found in West Trade Review, Epoch, The Louisville Review, Italian Americana and Santa Clara Review.