Henry Stimpson

STATE PRISON, 1976

Bang, bang, bang, bang echoes in the concrete library
as my assistant nails together a picture frame he’ll trade
with another inmate for two six-packs of Coke.

A tall, broad-shouldered lifer in his late 30s,
Bob was his own boss until I, a new master
of library science, came to reign two months ago.

“Don’t do that,” I tell him, but he keeps hammering
until he overhears two guys talking about their cases.
Bob points at them and booms, “Never admit it!

I don’t care if my wife caught me in bed with five broads,
I’d still deny it. Admit it, and it’s over. Deny it, and there’s
always that bit of doubt.” He grins. They chuckle.

Bob scours our law books for ways to cast doubt
that he was the one who raped a teenage hitchhiker
and shoved her body from a bridge onto the river ice.


Henry's YouTube video reading of "State Prison, 1976":



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Henry confesses: "What Bob says in the poem is my best effort at a direct quote. His brazenness astonished me. Having exhausted appeals based on DNA tests, which didn’t clear him, he remains in prison. Two years before that killing, Bob’s ex-girlfriend disappeared. He is the only suspect in that unsolved case."

HENRY STIMPSON's poems, articles and essays have appeared in Poet Lore, Cream City Review, Lighten Up Online, Rolling Stone, Muddy River Poetry Review, Mad River Review, Aethlon, Bluepepper, The MacGuffin, The Aurorean, Common Ground Review, Vol1Brooklyn, Poets & Writers, The Boston Globe and other publications. He’s been a public relations consultant and writer for decades. Once upon a time, he was a reference librarian, a prison librarian, and a cabdriver.